New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
===========================================================================
V.I. Lenin

Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/newdev/index.htm


============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


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New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
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PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


A leading country of modern capitalism is of especial
interest to the study of the socio-economic structure and evolution of
present-day agriculture. The U.S.A. is unrivalled either in the rate of
development of capitalism at the turn of the century, or in the record
level of capitalist development already attained; nor has it any rival in
the vastness of the territory developed with the use of the most up-to-date
machinery, which is adapted to the remarkable variety of natural and
historical conditions or in the extent of the political liberty and the
cultural level of the mass of the population. That country, indeed, is in
many respects the model for our bourgeois civilization and is its
ideal.

The study of the forms and laws of agricultural evolution is made
easier in the U.S.A. by its decennial censuses of population, which are
coupled with remarkably detailed descriptions of all industrial and
agricultural enterprises. This yields a wealth of exact information that is
unavailable in any other country; it helps to verify many popular notions,
most of which are very loosely formulated and repeated without criticism,
and usually serve to funnel bourgeois views and prejudices.

Mr. Himmer in the June (1913) issue of Zavety [3] gives some data
from the latest, Thirteenth (1910) Census, and on this basis reiterates the
most popular and thoroughly bourgeois contention—bourgeois both as
regards its theoretical basis and political significance—that
“the vast majority of farms in the United States employ only family
labour”; that “in the more highly developed areas agricultural
capitalism is disintegrating”; that “in the great majority of areas
. . . small-scale farming by owner-operators is becoming ever more
dominant”; that it is precisely “in the older cultivated


areas with a
higher level of economic development” that “capitalist
agriculture is disintegrating and production is breaking up into smaller
units”; that “there are no areas where colonization is no longer
continuing, or where large scale capitalist agriculture is not decaying and
is not being replaced by family-labour farms”, and so on and so
forth.

All these assertions are monstrously untrue. They are in direct
contradiction to reality. They are a sheer mockery of the truth. Their
incorrectness ought to be explained in detail for a very good reason:
Mr. Himmer is not the man in the street, he is not a casual contributor of
a casual magazine article, but one of the most prominent economists
representing the most democratic, extreme Left-wing bourgeois trend in Russian and European social thinking. That is precisely why
Mr. Himmer’s views may have, and indeed already have among some
non-proletarian sections of the population, particularly wide circulation
and influence. They are not merely his personal views, nor his individual
mistakes, but are rather an expression—couched in the most democratic
terms and heavily embellished with pseudo-socialist phraseology—of general bourgeois views which in the atmosphere of a capitalist
society are most readily accepted both by the smug professor, treading the
beaten path, and the small farmer who is more intelligent than millions of
his fellows.

The theory of the non-capitalist evolution of agriculture in capitalist
society, which Mr. Himmer advocates, is really the theory of the great
majority of bourgeois professors and bourgeois democrats and also of
opportunists in the labour movement of the whole world who are the latest
variety of those selfsame bourgeois democrats. It is no exaggeration to say
that this theory is an illusion, a dream, a delusion under which the whole
of bourgeois society is labouring. In devoting my further exposition to the
refutation of this theory, I shall try to give a complete picture of
capitalism in American agriculture, because one of the main mistakes made
by bourgeois economists is to isolate facts and figures, major and minor,
from the general context of politico-economic relations. All my data are
taken from official statistical publications of the United States of North
America, including above all the volumes Five, devoted to agriculture, of
the Twelfth and Thirteenth censuses taken in


1900 and 1910 respectively, [1] and also the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1911 . Having
mentioned these sources, I shall not give references to pages or tables for
each separate figure, as this would only burden the reader and needlessly
encumber the text; anyone interested enough will easily find the data in
question from the tables of contents in these publications.


1. General Characteristic of the Three
Main Sections. The Homestead West
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The vast area of the United States, which is only slightly smaller than
the whole of Europe, and the great diversity of farming conditions in the
various parts of the country make absolutely imperative a separate study of
the major divisions, each with its peculiar economic status. American
statisticians adopted five geographical divisions in 1900, and nine in
1910:

(1) New England—six states on the Atlantic coast in the north-east (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut); (2) Middle Atlantic (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania)—in 1900 these two divisions formed the North Atlantic division; (3) East North Central (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin); (4) West North Central (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas)—in 1900, the last two made up the North Central division; (5) South Atlantic (Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida)—unchanged from 1900; (6) East South Central (Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi); (7) West South Central (Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas)—in 1900, the last two made up the South Central division; (8) Mountain (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada); and (9) Pacific (Washington, Oregon, and California)—in 1900, the last two made up the Western division.

The excessive patchwork of these divisions prompted American
statisticians in 1910 to compress them into three main sections—the North
(1-4), the South (5-7) and the West (8-9). We shall presently see that this
division into three main sections is really most important and vital,
although here, too, as in everything else, there are transitional types, so
that on some basic points New England and the Middle Atlantic states will
have to be considered separately.

In order to define the fundamental distinction between the three main
sections, let us designate them as the industrial North, the former slave-owning South and the homestead West.

Here are the figures on their area, percentage of improved [2] land, and population:

Sections | Total Land Area(000,000 acres) | Percentage ofimproved land | Population(1910)(000,000)
The North | 588 | 49 | 56
The South | 562 | 27 | 29
The West | 753 | 5 | 7

The U. S. A. | 1,903 | 25 | 92

The North and the South have approximately the same area, while the
West is nearly half as large again as either. The population of the North,
however, is eight times that of the West, which, one might say, is hardly
populated. How rapidly it is being settled is evident from the fact that in
the 10 years between 1900 and 1910, the population in the North increased
by 18%; the South, by 20%; and the West, by 67%! There is hardly any
increase in the number of farms in the North: 2,874,000 in 1900, and
2,891,000 in 1910 (+0.6%); in the South the number increased by 18%, from
2,600,000 to 3,100,000; and in the West, by 54%, i.e., more than half as
much again, from 243,000 to 373,000.

How land is being settled in the West is seen from the data on
homesteads, which are parcels of land, mostly of 160 acres, i.e., about 65
dessiatines, allocated by the government free of charge or at a nominal
price. In the 10 years between 1901 and 1910, the area occupied by
homesteads in the North was 55.3 million acres (including 54.3 million,
i.e., more than 98%, in one division alone, namely the West North Central);
the area in the South was 20 million acres (including 17.3 million in one
division, the West South Central), and in the West, it was 55.3 million
acres spread over both divisions. This means that the West is a solid
homestead area, i.e., one where unoccupied land is given away practically
free—somewhat similar to the squatter land tenure in the outlying
districts of Russia, except that it is not regulated by a feudal state, but
in a democratic manner (I very nearly said: in a Narodnik manner; the
American Republic has implemented in a capitalist way the “Narodnik”
idea of distributing unoccupied land to all applicants). The North and the
South, however, each have only one homestead division, which may be
regarded as a transitional type from the unsettled West to the settled
North and South. Let us note, by the way, that only in two divisions of the
North—the New England and the Middle Atlantic—were there absolutely no
homestead grants made in the last decade. We shall later have to return to
these two most highly industrialized divisions, where there is no longer
any homesteading at all.

The above figures on homesteads refer only to claims that have been
staked and not to those actually settled; we have no figures on the latter
for the various divisions. But even if these returns are somewhat
exaggerated as absolute magnitudes, they are, at any rate, a faithful
reflection of the relative importance of homesteads in the various
divisions. In the North in 1910 the farms totaled 414 million acres, so
that homestead claims in the last 10 years came to about one-eighth of the
total; in the South, about one seventeenth (20 out of 354); and in the
West, one-half (55 out of 111)! To lump together data on areas
with hardly any land ownership at all, and data on areas where all the land
is occupied, would be to make nonsense of scientific investigation.

America provides the most graphic confirmation of the truth emphasized by
Marx in Capital , [4] Volume
III , that capitalism in agriculture does not depend on the form of land
ownership or land tenure. Capital finds the most diverse types of medieval
and patriarchal landed property—feudal, “peasant allotments”
(i.e., the holdings of bonded peasants); clan, communal, state, and other
forms of land ownership. Capital takes hold of all these, employing a
variety of ways and methods. For agricultural statistics to be properly and
rationally compiled, the methods of investigation, tabulation, etc., would
have to be modified to correspond to the forms of capitalist
penetration into agriculture; for instance, the homesteads would have to be
put into a special group and their economic fate traced. Unfortunately,
however, the statistics are all too often dominated by routine and
meaningless, mechanical repetition of the same old methods.

How extensive agriculture is in the West, as compared with the other
sections, is evident, by the way, from the data on expenditures for
artificial fertilizers. In 1909, the expenditure per acre of improved land
was 13 cents ($0.13) in the North; 50 cents, in the South, and only 6 cents
in the West. The South has the highest figure because cotton demands great
quantities of fertilizers, and the South is primarily a cotton-growing
area: cotton and tobacco account for 46.8% of the total value of all its
farm crops; grain, only 29.3%; hay and forage, 5.1%. By contrast, grain
leads in the North with 62.6%, followed by 18.8% of hay and forage, most of
which is cultivated. In the West, grain accounts for 33.1% of the total
value of all farm crops; hay and forage, with wild grasses predominating,
31.7%, while fruits, a special branch of commercial farming rapidly
developing on the Pacific coast, account for 15.5% of the total value.


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Notes
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[1] Census Reports. Twelfth Census
1900. Vol. V. Agriculture, Wash. 1902.—Thirteenth Census
    of the United States , Taken in the Year
    1910 . Vol. V. Agriculture, Wash. 1913.
— Lenin

[2] The 1910 Census defined farmland as consisting of (1) improved
      land, (2) woodlands and (3) all other unimproved land. Improved
      land includes all land regularly tilled or mowed, land pastured
      and cropped in rotation, land lying fallow, land in gardens,
      orchards vineyards, and nurseries, and land occupied by farm
      buildings.
— Lenin

[3] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[4] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

 |  | | | 2. The Industrial North |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


2. The Industrial North
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


By 1910, the urban population in the North reached 58.6% of the total,
as compared with 22.5% in the South and 48.8% in the West. The role of
industry is evident from these figures:

 | Value of products ($000,000,000) | Workers inindustry(000,000)
Crops | Live-stock | Total | Manufactures lesscost of raw materials
The North | 3.1 | 2.1 | 5.2 | 6.9 | 5.2
The South | 1.9 | 0.7 | 2.6 | 1.1 | 1.1
The West | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.3

The U. S. A. | 5.5 | 3.1 | 8.6 | 8.5 | 6.6

The total crop value is here overstated because a part of the crops,
such as feed, recurs in the value of the livestock products. But in any
case these figures show conclusively that almost five-sixths of American
manufacture is concentrated in the North, and that manufacture prevails
over agriculture in that section. The South and the West, on the contrary,
are predominantly agricultural.

The above table shows that the North differs from the South and the
West by a comparatively greater development of industry, which creates a
market and makes for the intensification of agriculture. The
North—“industrial”  in that sense—nevertheless still
remains the largest producer of agricultural products. More than one-half,
actually about three-fifths, of agricultural production, is concentrated in
the North. How much more intensive farming is in the North, as compared
with the other sections, will be seen from the following figures on the
per-acre value of all farm property—land, buildings, implements and
machinery, and livestock. In 1910, it was $66 in the North, as compared
with $25 in the South, and $41 in the West. The per-acre value of
implements and machinery alone was $2.07 in the North, $0.83 in the South,
and $1.04 in the West.

The New England and Middle Atlantic divisions stand out in this
picture. As I have already pointed out there is no new homesteading in
these parts. From 1900 to 1910, there was an absolute decrease in the
number of farms, and in the total and in the improved acreage of the
farms. Employment returns show that only 10% of the population there is
engaged in farming, as compared with a 33% average for the U.S.A., 25 to
41% for the other divisions of the North, and 51 to 63% for the South. Only
6 to 25% of the improved acreage in these two divisions is under cereal
crops (the average for the U.S.A. is 40%, and for the North, 46%); 52 to
29% is under grasses, mostly cultivated (as against 15% and 18%); and 4.6
to 3.8% is under vegetables (as against 1.5 and 1.5%). This is the area of
the most intensive agriculture. The average expenditure for fertilizers per
acre of improved land in 1909 was $1.30 and $0.62 respectively; the former
being the U.S. maximum, and the latter, second only to that of one division
in the South. The average value of implements and machinery per acre of
improved land was $2.58, and $3.88—the maximum figures for the U.S.A. We
shall later see that in these most industrialized divisions of the
industrial North, agriculture is the most intensive and has the most
pronounced capitalist character.


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Notes
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 | 1. General Characteristic of the Three Main Sections.  The Homestead West | | | 3. The Former Slave-Owning South |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


3. The Former Slave-Owning South
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The United States of America, writes Mr. Himmer, is a “country
which has never known feudalism and is free from its economic
survivals”  (p. 41 of his article). This is the very opposite of the
truth, for the economic survivals of slavery are not in any way
distinguishable from those of feudalism, and in the former slave-owning
South of the U.S.A. these survivals are still very powerful . It
would not be worth while to dwell on Mr. Himmer’s mistake if it were
merely one in a hastily written article. But all liberal and all Narodnik
writings in Russia show that the very same “mistake”  is being
made regularly and with unusual stubbornness with regard to the Russian labour-service system, our own survival of feudalism.

The South of the U.S.A. was slave-owning until slavery was swept away
by the Civil War of 1861-65. To this day, the Negroes, who make up no more
than from 0.7 to 2.2% of the population in the North and the West,
constitute from 22.6 to 33.7% of the population in the South. For the
U.S.A. as a whole, the Negroes constitute 10.7% of the population. There is
no need to elaborate on the degraded social status of the Negroes: the
American bourgeoisie is in no way better in this respect than the
bourgeoisie of any other country. Having “freed”  the Negroes, it took good care, under “free”, republican-democratic
capitalism, to restore everything possible, and do everything possible and
impossible for the most shameless and despicable oppression of the
Negroes. A minor statistical fact will illustrate their cultural
level. While the proportion of illiterates in 1900 among the white
population of the U.S.A. of 10 years of age and over was 6.2%, among the
Negroes it was as high as 44.5%! More than seven times as high! In the
North and the West illiteracy amounted from 4 to 6% (1900), while in the
South it was from 22.9 to 23.9%! One can easily imagine the complex of
legal and social relationships that corresponds to this disgraceful fact
from the sphere of popular literacy.

What then is the economic basis that has produced and continues to
support this fine “superstructure” ?

It is the typically Russian, “purely Russian” labour
service system , which is known as share-cropping .

In 1910, Negroes owned 920,883 farms, i.e., 14.5% of the total. Of the
total number of farmers, 37% were tenants; 62.1%, owners; the remaining
0.9% of the farms were run by managers. But among the whites 39.2% were
tenant farmers, and among the Negroes—75.3%! The typical white farmer in
America is an owner, the typical Negro farmer is a tenant. The proportion
of tenants in the West was only 14%: this section is being settled, with
new lands unoccupied, and is an El Dorado (a short-lived and unreliable El
Dorado, to be sure) for the small “independent farmer” . In the
North, the proportion of tenant farmers was 26.5%, and in the South, 49.6%!
Half of the Southern farmers were tenants.

But that is not all. These are not even tenants in the European,
civilized, modern-capitalist sense of the word. They are chiefly
semi-feudal or—which is the same thing in economic terms—semi-slave share-croppers . In the “free” West, share-croppers
were in the minority (25,000 out of a total of 53,000 tenants). In the old
North, which was settled long ago, 483,000 out of 766,000 tenant farmers,
i.e., 63%, were share-croppers. In the South, 1,021,000 out of 1,537,000
tenant farmers, i.e. , 66% , were share-croppers .

In 1910, free, republican-democratic America had 1,500,000
share-croppers, of whom more than 1 , 000 , 000 were
Negroes . And the proportion of share-croppers to the total number of
farmers is not decreasing, but is on the contrary steadily and rather
rapidly increasing. In 1880, 17.5% of the farmers in the U.S.A. were
sharecroppers, in 1890, 18.4%; in 1900, 22.2%; and in 1910, 24%.

American statisticians draw the following conclusions from the 1910 returns:

“ In the South the conditions have at all times been
somewhat different from those in the North, and many of the tenant farms
are parts of plantations of considerable size which date from before the
Civil War.”  In the South, “the system of operation by
tenants—chiefly colored tenants—has succeeded the system of operation
by slave labour. . . . The development of the tenant system is most
conspicuous in the South, where the large plantations formerly operated by
slave labour have in many cases been broken up into small parcels or tracts
and leased to tenants. . . . These plantations are in many cases still
operated substantially as agricultural units, the tenants being subjected
to a degree of supervision more or less similar to that which hired farm
labourers are subjected to in the North” ( op. cit. , Vol. V,
pp. 102, 104).

To show what the South is like, it is essential to add that its
population is fleeing to other capitalist areas and to the towns, just as
the peasantry in Russia is fleeing from the most backward central
agricultural gubernias, where the survivals of serfdom have been most
greatly preserved, in order to escape the rule of the notorious Markovs, to
those areas of Russia which have a higher level of capitalist development,
to the metropolitan cities, the industrial gubernias and the South (see The Development of Capitalism in
Russia [1] ).

The share-cropping
area, both in America and in Russia, is the most stagnant area, where the
masses are subjected to the greatest degradation and oppression. Immigrants
to America, who have such an outstanding role to play in the
country’s economy and all its social life, shun the South. In 1910,
the foreign-born formed 14.5% of the total population of America. But in
the South the figure was only l to 4% for the several divisions, whereas in
the other divisions the proportion of incomers ranged from not less than
13.9% to 27.7% (New England). For the “emancipated” Negroes,
the American South is a kind of prison where they are hemmed in, isolated
and deprived of fresh air. The South is distinguished by the immobility of
its population and by the greatest “attachment to the land” :
with the exception of that division of the South, which still has
considerable homesteading (West South Central), 91 to 92% of the population
in the two other divisions of the South resided in the same division where
they were born, whereas for the United States as a whole the figure was
72.6%, i.e., the mobility of the population is much greater. In the West,
which is a solid homestead area, only 35 to 41% of the population lived in
the division of their birth. Negroes are in full flight from the two Southern divisions
	  where there is no homesteading: in the 10 years between the last
	  two censuses, these two divisions provided other parts of the
	  country with almost 600,000 “black”  people. The
	  Negroes flee mainly to the towns: in the South, 77 to 80% of all
	  the Negroes live in rural communities; in other areas, only 8 to
	  32%. Thus it turns out that there is a startling similarity in
	  the economic status of the Negroes in America and the peasants in
	  the heart of agricultural Russia who “ were formerly
	  landowners’ serfs ”.


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Notes
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[1] See present edition, Vol. 3, pp. 585–90.— Ed .

 | 2. The Industrial North | | | 4. Average Size of Farms, “Disintegration of Capitalism” in the South |

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V. I. Lenin
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------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


4. Average Size of Farms, “Disintegration of Capitalism” in the South
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Having examined the chief distinctive features of the three main
sections of the U.S.A., as well as the general nature of their economic
conditions, we can now proceed to an analysis of the data most commonly
referred to. These are primarily data on the average acreage of farms. It
is on the basis of these data that a great many economists, including
Mr. Himmer, draw the most categorical conclusions.

Average acreage per farm in the U.S.A.
Years | All farmland | Improved land
18501860 | 202.6199.2 | 78.079.8

18701880189019001910 | 153.3133.7136.5146.2138.1 | 71.071.078.372.275.2

On the whole, there seems at first glance to be a reduction in the
average acreage of all farmland and an uncertain fluctuation—upward and
downward—in the average improved acreage. But there is a distinct break
in the 1860-70 period and this I have indicated by a line. During that
period there was an enormous decrease in the average acreage of
all farmland by 46 acres (from 199.2 to 153.3) and the greatest change
(from 79.8 to 71.0), also a reduction, in the average acreage of improved
land.

What was the reason? Obviously, the Civil War of 1861-65 and the
abolition of slavery. A decisive blow was dealt at the latifundia of the
slave-owners. Further on we shall see repeated confirmation of this fact,
but it is so generally known that it is surprising that it needs any proof
at all. Let us separate the returns for the North and those for the South.

 | Average acreage per farm
South | North
Years | All farmland | Improved land | All farmland | Improved land
18501860 | 332.1335.4 | 101.1101.3 | 127.1126.4 | 65.468.3

18701880189019001910 | 214.2153.4139.7138.2114.4 | 69.256.258.848.148.6 | 117.0114.9123.7132.2143.0 | 69.276.687.890.9100.3

We find that in the South the average improved acreage per farm between
1860 and 1870 greatly decreased (from 101.3 to 69.2), and that in
the North it slightly increased (from 68.3 to 69.2). This means
that the cause lay in the specific conditions of evolution in the
South. There we find even after the abolition of slavery, a reduction in the average acreage of
farms, although the process is slow and not continuous.

Mr. Himmer’s deduction is that in the South “the
small-scale family farms are extending their domination, while capital is
leaving agriculture for other spheres of investment. . . . Agricultural
capitalism is rapidly disintegrating in the South Atlantic
states. . .”.

This is an amusing assertion likely to be matched only in the arguments
of our Narodniks on the “disintegration of capitalism” in
Russia after 1861 in consequence of the landlords abandoning corvée
for the labour-service (i.e., semi-corvée!) system of economy. The
break-up of the slave-worked latifundia is called the “disintegration
of capitalism”. The transformation of the unimproved land of
yesterday’s slave-owners into the small farms of Negroes, half of
whom are share-croppers (it should be borne in mind that the proportion of
share-croppers has been steadily growing from census to census!),
is called the “disintegration of capitalism”. It is hardly
possible to go any further in distorting the fundamental concepts of
economics!

Chapter Twelve of the 1910 Census supplies information on typical
Southern “plantations”—not of the old slave period, but of
our own day. On the 39,073 plantations there are 39,073 “landlord
farms” and 398,905 tenant farms, or an average of 10 tenants per
landlord or “master”. Plantations average 724 acres, of which
only 405 acres is improved, more than 300 acres being unimproved, not a bad
reserve for the gentlemen who were the slave-owners of yesterday to draw on
in extending their plans of exploitation. . . .

Land on the average plantation is distributed as follows:
“landlord” farm—331 acres, of which 87 is
improved. “Tenant” farms, i.e., the parcels of the Negro
share-croppers, who continue to work for the master and under his eye,
average 38 acres, of which 31 is improved land.

As the population and the demand for cotton increase, the former
slave-owners of the South begin to parcel out their vast latifundia,
nine-tenths of the land on which is still unimproved, into small tracts
which are either sold to the Negroes or, more frequently, leased to them on
a half-crop basis. (From 1900 to 1910, the number of farmers in the South
who were full owners of all their farmland increased from 1,237,000 to
1,329,000, i.e., 7.5%, while the number of share-croppers went up from
772,000 to 1,021,000, i.e., 32.2%.) And yet an economist has appeared who
says this is “disintegration of capitalism”. . . .

I designate as latifundia farms with an area of 1,000 acres and
over. In 1910, the proportion of such farms in the U.S.A. was 0.8% (50,135
farms), and they added up to 167.1 million acres, or 19.0% of the total
amount of land. This is an average of 3,332 acres per latifundium. Only
18.7% of their acreage was improved while for all farms the figure was
54.4%. The capitalist North has the smallest number of latifundia:
0.5% of the total number of farms accounting for 6.9% of the land, 41.1% of
which is improved. The West has the greatest number of latifundia: 3.9% of
the total number of farms accounting for 48.3% of the land; 32.3% of the
land in the latifundia is improved. But it is in the former slave-owning
South that the latifundia have the highest proportion of
unimproved land: 0.7% of the farms are latifundia; they account for 23.9%
of the land; only 8.5% of the land in the latifundia is improved!
Incidentally, these detailed statistics clearly show that there is really
no foundation for the common practice of classifying the latifundia as capitalist enterprises, without a detailed analysis of the
specific data for each country and each area.

During the 10 years from 1900 to 1910, the total acreage of the
latifundia, but only of the latifundia, showed a decrease . The
reduction was quite substantial: from 197.8 million to 167.1 million acres,
i.e., 30.7 million acres. In the South, there was a reduction of 31.8
million acres (in the North, an increase of 2.3 million, and in the West, a
reduction of 1.2 million). Consequently, it is in the South, and in the
slave-owning South alone, that the latifundia, with their negligible
proportion (8.5%) of improved land, are being broken up on a really vast
scale.

The inescapable conclusion is that the only exact definition of the
economic process under way is—a transition from the slave-holding
latifundia, nine-tenths of which remained unimproved, to small commercial agriculture. It is a transition to commercial farms and
not to farms worked by family labour, as Mr. Himmer and the Narodniks,
together with all the bourgeois economists who sing cheap hymns to
“labour”, love to say. The term “family labour” has
no politico-economic meaning and is indirectly misleading. It is devoid of
meaning because the small farmer “labours” under any social
system of economy, be it slavery, serfdom or capitalism. The term
“family labour” is just an empty phrase, pure oratory which
serves to cover up the confusion of entirely different social
forms of economic organization—a confusion from which the bourgeoisie
alone stands to gain. The term “family labour” is misleading
and deceives the public, for it creates the impression that hired labour is not employed.

Mr. Himmer, like all bourgeois economists, evades just these statistics
on hired labour, although they are the most important data on the question
of capitalism in agriculture and although they are to be found in the 1900
Census report, as well as in the 1910 Abstract—Farm Crops , by States , which Mr. Himmer himself quotes (note on p. 49 of his
article).

The nature of the staple crop of the South shows that the growth of
small-scale agriculture in the South is nothing but the growth of
commercial farming. That crop is cotton. Cereals yield 29.3% of the total
crop value in the South; hay and forage, 5.1%; and cotton, 42.7%. From 1870
to 1910, the production of wool in the U.S.A. went up from 162 million
lbs. to 321 million lbs., i.e., it doubled; wheat, increased from 236
million to 635 million bushels, i.e., less than threefold; corn, from 1,094
million to 2,886 million bushels, also less than threefold; and cotton,
from 4,000,000 bales (of 500 lbs. each) to 12,000,000, i.e., threefold. The
growth of the crop that is primarily commercial was faster than that of
other, less commercialized, crops. In addition, there was in the main
division of the South, the South Atlantic, a rather substantial development
of tobacco production (12.1% of the crop value in the State of Virginia);
vegetables (20.1% of the total crop value in the State of Delaware, 23.2%
in the State of Florida); fruits (21.3% of the total crop value in the
State of Florida); etc. The nature of all these crops implies an
intensification of farming, a larger scale of operations on smaller
acreages, and greater employment of hired labour.

I shall now proceed to a detailed analysis of the returns on hired
labour; let us note only that the employment of hired labour is also
growing in the South, although in this respect it lags behind the other
sections— less hired labour is employed because of the wider practice of semi-slave share-cropping.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | 3. The Former Slave-Owning South | | | 5. The Capitalist Nature of Agriculture |

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		  Index|Volume 22 | | | Collected Works|L.I.A. Index


============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


5. The Capitalist Nature of Agriculture
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Capitalism in agriculture is usually gauged by the data on the size of
farms or the number and importance of big farms (in terms of acreage). I
have examined some of these data and shall return to the problem later on,
but it must be said that all these are, after all, indirect indications,
for acreage is not always an indication, and not by any means a direct
indication, that a farm is really big as an economic enterprise ,
or that it is capitalist in character.

In this respect the data on hired labour are far more indicative and
offer better proof. Agricultural censuses taken in recent years, such as
the Austrian of 1902 and the German of 1907, which I shall examine
elsewhere, show that the employment of hired labour in present-day
agriculture—and especially in small-scale farming—is much greater than
is generally believed. Nothing so obviously and categorically refutes the
petty-bourgeois myth about small “family” farms as do these
figures.

American statisticians have collected very extensive material on this,
for each farmer’s individual census form asks whether he spends
anything on hired labour, and, if he does, exactly how much. In contrast to
European statistics—such as those of the two countries just named—no
record is made in American statistics of the number of hired labourers
employed at the time by each farmer, although that could be easily
discovered, and the scientific value of such in formation, in addition to
the returns on the total expenditure on hired labour, would indeed be very
great. But the worst thing is the very poor tabulation of these returns in
the 1910 Census, which is in general presented much more poorly than the
1900 Census. The 1910 Census groups all farms by acreage (as does the 1900
Census) but, by contrast, it does not give any figures on the employment of
hired labour by these groups. This makes it impossible for us to compare
the employment of hired labour by farms with small and with large
acreages. The Census merely gives the average figures for the states and
the sections, i.e., data lumping together capitalist and non-capitalist
farms.

I shall make a special point of going into the more elaborate data for
1900 later on; meanwhile, here are the figures for 1910; in fact they
relate to 1899 and 1909.

Sections | Percentage of farm hiring labour
		      (1909) | Increase of expenditureon hired labour1899-1909 (%) | Expenditure on hire labour per acre of improved land ($)
1909 | 1899
The North | 55.1 | + 70.8 | 1.26 | 0.82
The South | 36.6 | + 87.1 | 1.07 | 0.69
The West | 52.5 | +119.0 | 3.25 | 2.07

The U. S. A. | 45.9 | + 82.3 | 1.36 | 0.86

The first thing that is made obvious by these figures is that
    agriculture is most capitalistic in the North (55.1% of farms
    employ hired labour); then, follows the West (52.5%) and, lastly,
    the South (36.6%). That is just as it should be when any densely
    populated and industrial area is being compared with an area still
    under going colonization and with an area of share-cropping. It
    goes without saying that figures on the proportion of farms
    employing hired labour are more suitable for a precise comparison
    of the sections than data on the expenditure on hired labour per
    acre of improved land. For the latter type of data to be
    comparable, the level of wages in the sections would have to be
    the same. No information on farm wages in the U.S.A. is available
    but in the light of the basic distinctions between the sections it
    is inconceivable that their wage levels are the same.

Thus, in the North and in the West—the two sections
    which together have two-thirds of the improved land and two-thirds
    of the livestock— more than one-half the farmers
    cannot manage without hired labour. The proportion is smaller in
    the South only because there the semi-feudal (alias semi-slave)
    system of exploitation in the form of share-cropping is still
    strong. There is no doubt that in America, as in all the other
    capitalist countries, a part of the handicapped farmers have to
    sell their labour-power. Unfortunately, American statistics do not
    contain any information about this, in contrast, for example, to
    the 1907 German statistics, in which these data have been
    collected and worked out in detail. According to the German
    statistics, hiring themselves out as labourers is the main occupation of 1,940,867 persons, i.e., over 30%, of
    the 5,736,082 owners of farms (a total which includes the very
    small “owners”). To be sure, the mass of these
    farm-hands and day-labourers with a bit of land of their own
    belong to the poorest groups of farmers.

Let us assume that in the U.S.A., where the smallest farms (of
    less than three acres) are as a general rule not registered at
    all, only 10% of the farmers sell their labour-power. Even then we
    find that more than one-third of the farmers are directly exploited by the landlords and capitalists (24%
    share-croppers who are exploited by former slave-owners in feudal
    or semi-feudal fashion, plus 10% who are exploited by the
    capitalists, or altogether 34%). This means that of the total
    number of farmers a minority , hardly more than one-fifth or one-quarter , neither hire labourers nor hire
    themselves out or sell themselves into bondage.

Such is the actual state of affairs in the country of
    “model and advanced” capitalism, in the country with
    free distribution of millions of dessiatines of land. Here again
    the famous non-capitalist, small-scale “family”
    farming proves to be a myth.

How many hired labourers are engaged in American agriculture?
    Is their number increasing or decreasing in proportion to the
    total number of farmers and the total rural population?

It is regrettable that American statistics do not provide a
    direct answer to these highly important questions. Let us find an
    approximate answer.

Firstly, we can obtain an approximate answer
    from the returns on occupations (Volume IV of the Census
    reports). These stalistics are not an American
    “success”. They are compiled in such a routine,
    mechanical, incongruous manner that they contain no information on
    the status of the persons employed, i.e., no distinction is made
    between farmers, family workers, and hired labourers. Instead of
    making a precise economic classification, the compilers were
    content to use “popular” terminology, absurdly
    bracketing members of farmers’ families and hired labourers
    under the head of farm workers. As we know it is not only
    in American statistics that there is complete chaos on this
    question.

The 1910 Census makes an attempt to bring some order into this
    chaos, to correct the obvious mistakes and to separate at least a
    part of the hired labourers (those working out) from members of
    the family working on the home farm. In a series of calculations
    the statisticians correct the total number of persons engaged in
    farming, reducing it by 468,100 (Vol. IV, p. 27). The number of females working out is set at 220,048 for 1900, and
    337,522 for 1910 (an increase of 53%). The number of males working
    out in 1910 was 2,299,444. Assuming that in 1900 the proportion of
    hired labourers to the total number of farm workers was the same
    as in 1910, the number of males working out in 1900 must have been
    1,798,165. We then obtain this picture:

 | 1900 | 1910 | Increase(%)
Total engaged in agricultureNumber of farmersNumber of hired labourers | 10,381,7565,674,8752,018,213 | 12,099,8255,981,5222,566,966 | +16+ 5+27

That is, the percentage increase in the number of hired
    labourers was over five times greater than in that of farmers (27%
    and 5%). The proportion of farmers in the rural population decreased ; the proportion of hired labourers increased . The proportion of independent farm operators
    to the total farming population dropped; the number of dependent,
    exploited persons, increased.

In 1907, hired farm labourers in Germany numbered 4.5 million
    out of a total of 15 million persons working on the home farm and
    working out. Consequently, 30% were hired labourers. In America,
    according to the estimate given above, the figure was 2.5 million
    out of 12 million, i.e., 21%. It is possible that the availability
    of vacant land distributed free, and the high percentage of share
    cropping tenants tended to lower the percentage of hired labourers
    in America.

Secondly, an approximate answer may be provided by the figures
    on expenditure on hired labour in 1899 and 1909. During the same
    period, the number of industrial wage-workers increased from 4.7
    million to 6.6 million, i.e., 40%, and their wages from $2,008
    million to $3,427 million, i.e., 70%. (It should be borne in mind
    that the rise in the cost of living cancelled out this nominal
    increase in wages.)

On the strength of this we may assume that the 82% increase in
    expenditure on hired farm labour corresponds to an increase of
    approximately 48% in the number of hired labourers. Making a
    similar assumption for the three main sections we obtain the
    following picture:

Sections | Percentage increase from 1900 to 1910
Total rural population | Number of farms | Number of hired labourers |
The North | + 3.9 | + 0.6 | +40 |
The South | +14.8 | +18.2 | +50 |
The West | +49.7 | +53.7 | +66 |
 |
The U. S. A. | +11.2 | +10.9 | +48 |

These figures also show that for the country as a whole the
    increase in the number of farmers is not keeping pace with the
    growth of the rural population, while the increase in the number
    of hired labourers is outstripping the growth of the rural
    population. In other words: the proportion of independent farm
    operators is decreasing, and the proportion of dependent farm
    workers is increasing.

It should be noted that the great difference between the
    increase in the number of hired labourers obtained in the first
    estimate (+27%) and in the second (+48%) is quite possible because
    in the former only the professional farm labourers were
    enumerated, and in the latter, every instance of
    employment of hired labour was taken into account. In farming,
    seasonal hired labour is highly important, and it should be the
    rule, therefore, that it is never enough to determine the number
    of hired labourers, permanent and seasonal, but that an effort must also be made to
    determine, as far as possible, the total expenditure on hired
    labour.

At any rate, both estimates definitely show a growth of capitalism in agriculture in the U.S.A., and an increase in the employment of hired labour, which is
    proceeding at a faster pace than the growth of the rural
    population and of the number of farmers.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | 4. Average Size of Farms, “Disintegration of Capitalism” in the South | | | 6. Areas of the Most Intensive Agriculture |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


6. Areas of the Most Intensive Agriculture
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Having examined the general data on hired labour as the most
    direct indicator of capitalism in agriculture, we can now go on to
    a more detailed analysis of the specific forms assumed by
    capitalism in this particular branch of the economy.

We have taken a look at one area with a shrinking average
    acreage of farms, namely, the South, where the process signifies a
    transition from latifundia worked by slaves to small-scale
    commercial farms. There is another area where the average acreage
    of farms is diminishing—a part of the North: New England and
    the Middle Atlantic states. Here are the figures for these
    divisions:

Average acreage per farm (improved land)
New England | Middle Atlantic States
1850186018701880189019001910 | 66.566.466.463.456.542.438.4 | 70.870.369.268.067.463.462.6

The average farm in New England is smaller than in any other
    division of the U.S.A. In two Southern divisions the average is 42
    to 43 acres, and in the third, the West South Central, where
    homesteading is still going on, it is 61.8 acres, i.e., almost as
    much as in the Middle Atlantic states. It is the reduction in the
    average size of farms in New England and the Middle Atlantic
    states, “the areas with an older culture and a higher level
    of economic development” (Mr. Himmer, p. 60), where
    homesteading is no longer taking place, that has led Mr. Himmer,
    as it has very many other bourgeois economists, to draw the
    conclusion that “capitalist agriculture is
    disintegrating”, that “production is breaking up into
    smaller units”, that there are “no areas where
    colonization is no longer continuing, or where large-scale
    capitalist agriculture is not decaying and is not being replaced
    by family-labour farms”.

Mr. Himmer arrived at these conclusions, which are the very
    opposite of the truth, because he forgot a mere
    “trifle”: the intensification of agriculture! It is
    incredible, but it is a fact. This matter requires a particularly
    thorough analysis because quite a few bourgeois economists, almost
    all in fact, contrive to forget this “trifle” when
    dealing with small and large-scale production in agriculture,
    although “in theory” they are all “aware”
    of and accept the intensification of farming. This is indeed one
    of the basic sources of all the misadventures of bourgeois
    (including Narodnik and opportunist) economics on the question of
    small “family” farms. The “trifle” they
    forget is this: owing to the technical peculiarities of
    agriculture, the process of its intensification frequently leads
    to a reduction in the improved acreage on the farm, and
    at the same time expands it as an economic unit ,
    increasing its output , and making it more and more of a capitalist enterprise.

Let us first see whether or not there is any fundamental
    difference in farming techniques, in the general character of
    farming and degree of its intensification between New England and
    the Middle Atlantic states, on the one hand, and between the rest
    of the North and the country’s other divisions, on the
    other.

The differences in the crops grown are shown in the following table:

valign="middle" colspan=3>
	  Percentage of total crop value(1910)
Divisions | Cereals | Hay andforage | Vegetables, fruitsand similar specialcrops
New EnglandMiddle Atlantic | 7.629.6 | 41.931.4 | 33.531.8
- - - - - - - -
East North CentralWest North Central | 65.475.4 | 16.514.6 | 11.05.9

The difference in farming conditions is fundamental. In the
    first two divisions agriculture is highly intensive; in the other
    two it is extensive. In the latter, cereals account for the bulk
    of the total crop value; in the former, they contribute not only a
    minor part, but sometimes a negligible part (7.6%), while the
    special “commercial” crops (vegetables, fruits, etc.) yield
    a greater part of the crop value than cereals. Extensive
    agriculture has given way to intensive agriculture. Grass
    cultivation has become widespread. Of the 3.8 million acres under
    hay and forage in New England, 3.3 million acres were under cultivated grasses. The figures for the Middle Atlantic
    states are 8.5 and 7.9 million respectively: By contrast, of the
    27.4 million acres under hay and forage in the West North Central
    states (an area of colonization and extensive agriculture), 14.5
      million, i.e., the greater part, were unimproved grass lands, etc.

Yields are considerably higher in the “intensive” states:

Divisions | Per-acre yield in bushels
Corn | Wheat
1909 | 1899 | 1909 | 1899
New EnglandMiddle Atlantic | 45.232.2 | 39.434.0 | 23.518.6 | 18.014.9
- - - - - - - - - -
East North CentralWest North Central | 38.627.7 | 38.331.4 | 17.214.8 | 12.912.2

The same is true of commercial livestock and dairy farming,
    which are especially highly developed in these divisions:

Divisions | Average numberof dairy cowsper farm | Average production ofmilk per cow (gallons)
(1900) | 1909 | 1899
New EnglandMiddle Atlantic | 5.86.1 | 476490 | 548514
- - - - - -
East North CentralWest North Central | 4.04.9 | 410325 | 487371
- - - - - -
The South (3 divisions) | 1.9-3.1 | 232-286 | 290-395
- - - - - - - -
The West (2 divisions) | 4.7-5.1 | 339-475 | 334-470
- - - - -
The U.S.A. | 3.8 | 362 | 424

This table shows that in the “intensive” states
    dairy farming is on a considerably larger scale than in
    all the others. The areas with the smallest farms (in
    terms of improved acreage) have the largest dairies. This
    fact is of tremendous importance, for, as everyone knows, dairy
    farming develops most rapidly in suburban localities and in very
    highly industrialized countries (or areas). Statistics from
    Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, which are dealt with elsewhere,
    improved [1] also show a growing concentration of dairy cattle.

As we have seen, hay and forage in the “intensive”
    states constitute a considerably greater proportion of the total
    crop value than cereals. Accordingly, livestock farming there
    develops largely on the basis of purchased feed . Here are
    the relevant figures for 1909:

Division | Receipts fromsale of feed | Outlays on feed | Excess of receiptsor outlays
($000,000) |
New EnglandMiddle Atlantic | + 4.3+21.6 | -34.6-54.7 | -30.3-33.1
- - - - - -
East North CentralWest North Central | +195.6+174.4 | -40.6-76.2 | +155.0+ 98.2

The extensive states of the North sell feed. The intensive
    states buy it. It is clear that if feed is purchased large-scale operations of a highly capitalistic nature
    can be conducted on a small tract of land.

Let us make a comparison between the two intensive divisions
    of the North, New England and the Middle Atlantic states, and the
    most extensive division of the North, the West North Central:

Division | Improvedland(000,000acres) | Value oflivestock($000,000) | Receipts fromsale of feed($000,000) | Outlays onfeed($000,000)
New England +Middle Atlantic | 36.5 | 447 | 26 | 89
West North Central | 164.3 | 1,552 | 174 | 76

We find that there is more livestock per acre of improved land
    in the intensive states (447:36 = $12 per acre) than in the
    extensive states (1,552:164 = $9). More capital in the form of
    livestock is invested in a unit of land area. And the total
    per-acre turnover of the feed trade (purchases +sales) is also
    very much greater in the intensive states (26+89 = $115 million
    for 36 million acres) than in the extensive states (174+76 = $250
    million for 164 million acres). In the intensive states farming is
    obviously much more commercialized than in the extensive
    states.

Expenditure on fertilizers and the value of implements and
    machinery are the most exact statistical expression of the degree
    of intensification of agriculture. Here are the figures:

Divisions | Percentageof farms withoutlays onfertilizers | Averageoutlaysper farm | Average outlaysper acre ofimproved land($) | Averageimprovedacreageper farm
1909 | 1899 | (1909)
TheNorth | New EnglandMiddle Atlantic | 60.957.1 | 8268 | 1.300.62 | 0.530.37 | 38.462.6
- - - - - - - - - -
East North CentralWest North Central | 19.62.1 | 3741 | 0.090.01 | 0.070.01 | 79.2148.0
TheSouth | South AtlanticEast South CentralWest South Central | 69.233.86.4 | 773753 | 1.230.290.06 | 0.490.130.03 | 43.642.261.8
TheWest | MountainPacific | 1.36.4 | 67189 | 0.010.10 | 0.010.05 | 86.8116.1
- - - - - - - - - -
 | The U.S.A. | 28.7 | 63 | 0.24 | 0.13 | 75.2

This fully brings out the difference between the extensive
    divisions of the North, with an insignificant proportion of farms
    using purchased fertilizers (2-19%), and with negligible
    expenditure on fertilizers per acre of improved land (
    $0.01-$0.09)—and the intensive states, where the majority of farms (57-60%) use purchased fertilizers and
    where expenditure on fertilizers is substantial. In New England,
    for example, the per-acre expenditure is $1.30—the maximum figure for all divisions (once again a case of farms with the smallest acreage and the largest expenditure on
    fertilizers!), which exceeds the figure for one of the divisions
    of the South (South Atlantic). It should be noted that in the
    South especially large quantities of artificial fertilizers are
    required by cotton, on which, as we have seen, the labour of Negro
    share-croppers is most widely employed.

In the Pacific states, we find a very small percentage of
    farms using fertilizers (6.4%) but the maximum average per farm
    expenditure ($189)—calculated, of course, only for the farms
    which used fertilizers. Here we have another example of the growth
    of large-scale and capitalist agriculture with a
    simultaneous reduction of the farm acreage. In two of the
    three Pacific states—Washington and Oregon—the use of
    fertilizers is quite insignificant, a mere $0.01 per acre. It is
    only in the third state, California, that the figure is relatively
    high: $0.08 in 1899, and $0.19 in 1909. In this state, the fruit
    crop plays a special role, and is expanding at an extremely rapid
    rate along purely capitalist lines; in 1909, it accounted for
    33.1% of the total crop value, as against 18.3% for cereals, and
    27.6% for hay and forage. The typical fruit-growing farm has a smaller-than-average acreage but the use of fertilizers
    and hired labour is much greater than average. We shall
    later have occasion to dwell on relationships of this type, which
    are typical of capitalist countries with an intensive agriculture
    and which are most stubbornly ignored by statisticians and
    economists.

But let us return to the “intensive” states of the
    North. Not only is expenditure on fertilizers—$1.30 per
    acre—in New England the highest and the average farm acreage
    the smallest (38.4 acres); expenditure on fertilizers is
    increasing at an especially rapid rate. In the 10 years between
    1899 and 1909, this expenditure increased from $0.53 per acre to
    $1.30, i.e., two and one-half times. Consequently, here
    intensification of agriculture, technical progress and improvement
    of farming techniques are extremely rapid. To get a more graphic
    picture of what this means let us compare New England, the most
    intensive division of the North, with West North Central, the most
    extensive division. In the latter division, scarcely any
    artificial fertilizers are used at all (2.1% of the farms and
    $0.01 per acre); its farm acreage is larger than that of any other
    division of America (148 acres), and is growing at a faster
    rate. This particular division is usually taken as the model of
    capitalism in American agriculture—and this Mr. Himmer also
    does. As I shall show in detail later on, this is incorrect. It is
    due to the crudest, most primitive form of extensive agriculture
    being confused with technically progressive intensive
    agriculture. In the West North Central division, the average farm
    is four times as big as in New England (148 acres as against
    38.4), while average expenditure on fertilizers per user is only
    half as great: $41 as against $82.

Hence, in actual practice there are instances of a substantial reduction in farm acreage being accompanied by a
    substantial increase in expenditure on artificial
    fertilizers, so that “small” production—if we
    continue, as a matter of routine, to regard it as being small in
    terms of acreage—turns out to be “large” in
    terms of the capital invested in the land. This is not an
    exception, but the rule for any country where extensive
    agriculture is giving way to intensive agriculture. And this
    applies to all capitalist countries, so that when this
    typical, essential and fundamental characteristic of agriculture
    is ignored, the result is the common error of the votaries of
    small-scale agriculture who base their judgement only on farm
      acreage.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] See The Agrarian Question and the
    “Critics of Marx”, Vol. 13.
— Lenin

 | 5. The Capitalist Nature of Agriculture | | | 7. Machinery and Hired Labour in Agriculture |

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		  backwardContentsforward >
Works
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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


7. Machinery and Hired Labour in
Agriculture
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Let us consider another form of capital investment in land which
      is technically different from the form examined
      above—implements and machinery. All European agricultural
      statistics provide irrefutable evidence that the larger the farm
      acreage, the greater is the proportion of farms using all types
      of machines and the greater the number of machines used. The
      superiority of big farms in this highly important respect has
      been established beyond doubt. In this field, too, American
      statisticians have a rather unconventional approach: neither
      implements nor farm machinery are recorded separately, only
      their total value being given. Such data may, of course, be less
      exact in each individual case, but taken as a whole they allow
      definite comparisons between divisions and between groups of
      farms—comparisons which are impossible with other kinds of
      data.

Below are the figures for farm implements and machinery by
      divisions:

 |  | Value of implements and
	      machinery (1909)
Divisions | Average per farm($) | Averageper acreof all farmland($)
TheNorth | New EnglandMiddle Atlantic | 269358 | 2.583.88

East North CentralWest North Central | 239332 | 2.281.59
 | The South (three divisions)The West (two divisions) | 72-88-127269-350 | 0.71-0.92-0.950.83-1.29

The U.S.A. | 199 | 1.44

Average per acre of all farmland ($)

The former slave-owning South, the area of share-cropping,
      occupies a bottom place in the use of machinery. The value of
      implements and machinery per acre—for its three
      divisions—is one-third, one-quarter, one-fifth of the
      figures for the intensive states of the North. The latter lead
      the rest and, in particular, are far ahead of the West North
      Central states, America’s most agricultural area and her
      granary, which superficial observers still frequently regard as
      a model area of capitalism and of the use of machinery.

It should be noted that the American statistical method of
      determining the value of machinery, as well as of land,
      livestock, buildings, etc., per acre of all farmland and not per
      acre of improved land, understates the superiority of the
      “intensive” areas of the North and cannot, in general, be
      considered correct. The difference between the divisions in
      regard to the proportion of improved acreage is very great: in
      the West, it is as low as 26.7% for the Mountain states, and as
      high as 75.4% for the East North Central states in the
      North. For the purposes of economic statistics, improved land is
      undoubtedly of much greater importance than total acreage. In
      New England, improved acreage in farms and its proportion of the
      total has decreased substantially, especially since 1880,
      probably under the impact of competition from the free lands of
      the West (i.e., free from ground-rent, from tribute to the
      landowning gentry). At the same time, the use of machinery in
      this division is very extensive and the value of machinery per
      acre of improved land is especially high. In 1910, it
      amounted to $7 per acre, while in the Middle Atlantic States it
      was about $5.50 and not more than $2-3 in the other divisions.

Again, the division with the smallest farms, in terms
      of acreage, turns out to have the largest capital
      investments in land in the form of machinery.

Comparing the Middle Atlantic, one of the “intensive” divisions
      of the North, with the most extensive region of the North, the
      West North Central, we discover that as far as improved acreage
      per farm is concerned, that of the former is less than half
      that of the latter —62.6 acres as against
      148.0—while the value of machinery used is greater —$358 per farm as against $332. The smaller
      farms are thus larger enterprises in terms of-machinery used.

We still have to compare the data on the intensive nature of
      agriculture with the data on the employment of hired labour. I
      already gave these figures in brief above, in Chapter 5. We must
      now examine them in greater detail by divisions .

 | Divisions | Percentage
of farmshiring labourin 1909 | Averageoutlayson hiredlabour perhiring farm | Outlays onlabour per acreof improved land($) | Increaseof outlaysfrom 1899to 1909(%)
1909 | 1899
The North | New EnglandMiddle Atlantic | 66.065.8 | 277253 | 4.762.66 | 2.551.64 | +86+62

East North CentralWest North Central | 52.751.0 | 199240 | 1.330.83 | 0.780.56 | +71+48
The South | South AtlanticEast South CentralWest South Central | 42.031.635.6 | 142107178 | 1.370.801.03 | 0.800.490.75 | +71+63+37
The West | MountainPacific | 46.858.0 | 547694 | 2.953.47 | 2.421.92 | +22+80
 |
The U.S.A. | 45.9 | 223 | 1.36 | 0.86 | +58

This shows, firstly, that capitalism is undoubtedly much more
      developed in the agriculture of the Northern intensive states
      than in that of the extensive states; secondly, that in the
      former, capitalism is developing faster than in the latter;
      thirdly, that the division with the smallest farms, New England,
      has both the highest level of development of capitalism in
      agriculture and the highest rate of its development. There the
      increase of expenditure on hired labour per acre of improved
      land is 86%; the Pacific states come second in this
      respect. California, where, as I have said, “small-scale”
      capitalist fruit-raising is rapidly developing, is also the
      leader in this respect among the Pacific states.

The West North Central division, with the largest farm acreages
      (an average of 148 acres in 1910, counting improved land only)
      and with the most rapid and steady growth of farm acreages since
      1850, is commonly regarded as the “model” capitalist region of
      American agriculture. We have now seen that this contention is
      profoundly erroneous. The extent to which hired labour is used
      is certainly the best and most direct indicator of the
      development of capitalism. And it tells us that America’s
      “granary”, the region of the much vaunted “wheat factories”,
      which attract so much attention, is less capitalist
      than the industrial and intensively farmed region, where the
      indication of agricultural progress is not an increase in
      improved acreage but an increase in capital investments
      in the land, together with a simultaneous reduction of
      the acreage.

It is quite possible to imagine that with the use of machinery
      the improvement of the “black soil” or unploughed virgin lands
      in general can proceed very rapidly despite a small increase in
      the employment of hired labour. In the West North Central states
      expenditure on hired labour per acre of improved land was $0.56
      in 1899, and $0.83 in 1909, an increase of only 48%. In New
      England, where the improved area is decreasing and not
      increasing and where the average size of farms is decreasing and
      not in creasing, expenditure on hired labour was not only very
      much higher both in 1899 ($2.55 per acre) and in 1909 ($4.76 per
      acre), but had grown during the period at a much faster rate
      (+86%).

The average farm in New England is one-fourth the size
      of farms in the West North Central states (38.4 as against 148
      acres), yet its average expenditure on hired labour is greater : $277 as against $240. Consequently, the
      reduction in the size of farms means in such cases that a
      greater amount of capital is invested in agriculture, and that
      the capitalist nature of agriculture is intensified; it
      signifies a growth of capitalism and capitalist production.

While the West North Central states, which comprise 34.3% of the
      total improved acreage in the U.S.A., are the most typical
      division of “extensive” capitalist agriculture, the Mountain states offer an example of similar extensive
      farming in conditions of the most rapid colonization. Here less
      hired labour is employed, in terms of the proportion of farms
      employing labour, but the average expenditure on hired labour is
      very much higher than in the West North Central division. But in
      the former the employment of hired labour increased at a slower
      rate than in any other division of America (only +22%). This
      type of evolution was apparently due to the following
      conditions. In this division, colonization and the distribution
      of homesteads are extremely widespread. The area under crops
      increased more than in any other division: by 89% from 1900 to
      1910. The settlers, the owners of the homesteads, naturally
      employ little hired labour, at any rate when starting their
      farms. On the other hand, hired labour must be employed on a
      very large scale, firstly, by some latifundia, which are
      especially numerous in this division as in the West in general;
      and secondly, by farms raising special and highly capitalist
      crops. In some states of this division, for instance, a very
      high proportion of the total crop value comes from fruits
      (Arizona—6%, Colorado—10%), and vegetables
      (Colorado—11.9%, Nevada—11.2%), and so forth.

In summing up, I must say the following: Mr. Himmer’s assertion
      that “there are no areas where colonization is no longer
      continuing, or where large-scale capitalist agriculture is not
      decaying and is not being replaced by family-labour farms”, is a
      mockery of the truth, and entirely contrary to the actual
      facts. The New England division, where there is no colonization
      at all, where farms are smallest, where farming is most intensive, shows the highest level of capitalism
      in agriculture and the highest rate of capitalist
      development. This conclusion is most essential and basic for an
      understanding of the process of capitalist development in
      agriculture in general, because the intensification of
      agriculture and the reduction in the average farm acreage that
      goes with it is not some accidental, local, casual phenomenon,
      but one that is common to all civilized
      countries. Bourgeois economists of every stripe make a host of
      mistakes when considering data on the evolution of agriculture
      (as in Great Britain, Denmark, and Germany) because they are not
      familiar enough with this general phenomenon, they have not
      given it enough thought and have not understood or analysed it.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | 6. Areas of the Most Intensive Agriculture | | | 8. Displacement of Small by Big Enterprises. Quantity of Improved Land |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


8. Displacement of Small by Big Enterprises.
      Quantity of Improved Land
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


We have examined the major forms of the development of
      capitalism in agriculture, and have seen how extremely varied
      they are. The most important are: the break-up of the
      slave-holding latifundia in the South; the growth of large-scale
      extensive farming operations in the extensive area of the North;
      the most rapid development of capitalism in the intensive area
      of the North, where farms are, on the average, the smallest. The
      facts incontrovertibly prove that in some cases the development
      of capitalism is indicated by an increase in farm acreage and in
      others by an increase in the number of farms. In view of such a
      state of affairs we learn nothing from the returns on average
      farm acreages summarized for the country as a whole.

What then is the net result of the various local and
      agricultural peculiarities? An indication is given by the data
      on hired labour. The growing employment of hired labour is a
      general process transcending all these
      peculiarities. But in the vast majority of civilized countries
      agricultural statistics, paying tribute, intentionally or
      otherwise, to prevailing bourgeois notions and prejudices,
      either fail to furnish any systematic information on hired
      labour at all, or give it only for the most recent period (e.g.,
      German Agricultural Census of 1907), so that it is impossible to
      make a comparison with the past. I shall show in detail
      elsewhere that in the elaboration and tabulation of the returns
      of hired labour American statistics changed markedly for the
      worse between 1900 and 1910.

The most common and most popular method of presenting
      statistical summaries in America and most other countries is to
      compare big and small farms by acreage. I shall now proceed to a
      consideration of these data.

In grouping farms by acreage, American statisticians take total
      acreage and not just the improved area, which would, of course,
      be the more correct method, and is the one employed by German
      statisticians. No reason is given why seven groups (under 20
      acres, 20 to 49, 50 to 99, 100 to 174, 175 to 499, 500 to 999,
      1,000 and over) are used to tabulate the returns of the 1910
      Census in the United States. Statistical routine must apparently
      have been of paramount consideration. I shall call the
      100-to-174-acre group—medium, because it consists mostly of
      homesteads (the official size of a homestead is 160 acres), and
      also because land holdings of this size usually give the farmer
      the greatest degree of “independence” and require the least
      employment of hired labour. The groups above that I shall call
      large or capitalistic because, as a general rule, they do not
      manage without hired labour. Farms with 1,000 acres and over I
      shall regard as latifundia—of which three-fifths is
      unimproved land in the North, nine-tenths, in the South, and
      two-thirds, in the West. Small farms are those with less than
      100 acres; how much economic independence they have is evident
      from the fact that in three groups, from the bottom up, 51%, 43%
      and 23% of the farms respectively, are recorded as having no
      horses. It goes without saying that this characteristic should
      not be taken in an absolute sense and should not he applied to
      all divisions or to localities with specific conditions without
      a special analysis.

I am unable to give here the returns for all the seven groups in
      the main sections of the United States, for this would overload
      the text with an excessive number of figures. I shall,
      therefore, merely outline the basic distinctions between the
      North, the South and the West, and give the full returns only
      for the United States as a whole. We should not lose sight of
      the fact that three-fifths (60.6%) of all the improved land, is
      in the North; less than one third (31.5%), in the South; and
      under one-twelfth (7.9%), in the West.

The most striking distinction between the three main sections is
      that the capitalist North has the smallest number of
      latifundia, although their number, their total acreage, and
      their improved acreage are on the increase. In 1910, 0.5% of the
      farms in the North were of 1,000 acres and over; these big farms
      had 6.9% of all the land and 4.1% of the improved land. The
      South had 0.7% of such farms, with 23.9% of the total acreage
      and 4.8% of the improved acreage. In the West there were 3.9% of
      such farms, owning 48.3% of the total acreage, and 32.3% of the
      improved acreage. This is a familiar picture: the slave-holding
      latifundia of the South, and the even vaster latifundia of the
      West, the latter being partly the foundation of the most
      extensive stock-raising, and partly reserve tracts of land
      occupied by “settlers” and resold or (less often) leased to real
      farmers improving the “Far West”.

America demonstrates clearly that it would be imprudent to
      confuse the latifundia with large-scale capitalist agriculture,
      and that the latifundia are frequently survivals of
      pre-capitalist relationships—slave-owning, feudal or
      patriarchal. A break-up, a parcelling out of the latifundia, is
      taking place both in the South and in the West. In the North,
      the total farm acreage increased by 30.7 million acres, of which
      only 2.3 million is accounted for by latifundia, while 22
      million belongs to big, capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres). In
      the South, the total acreage was reduced by 7.5 million. The
      latifundia decreased by 31.8 million acres. On the
      small farms there was an increase of 13 million, and on the
      medium farms, 5 million acres. In the West, the total acreage
      increased by 17 million; among the latifundia there was a
      decrease of 1.2 million; on the small farms, an increase of 2
      million; medium, 5 million; large, 11 million acres.

The improved acreage increased in the latifundia of all
      three sections: substantially in the North (+3.7 million acres =
      +47.0%), very slightly in the South (+0.3 million = +5.5%), and
      more in the West (+2.8 million = +29.6%). But in the North, the
      maximum increase in the improved acreage-occurred on the large farms (175 to 999 acres); in the South, on the small and medium ; in the West, on the large and medium . Hence, it is the large farms
      that are increasing their share of the improved land in
      the North, and the small and in part the medium farms, in the
      South and the West. This picture fully corresponds to what we
      already know about the different conditions in these
      sections. In the South, there is a growth ot small-scale
      commercial farming at the expense of the disintegrating
      slave-holding latifundia; the process is similar in the West,
      except that the break-up of even larger latifundia, which had
      their origin not in slave-holding but in extensive
      stock ranches and pre-empted tracts, is not as
      pronounced. Moreover, American statisticians say the following
      about the Pacific division:

“ The great development of small fruit and other farms on the
      Pacific coast, due, in part at least, to irrigation projects
      organized in recent years, is reflected in the increase in small
      farms of less than 50 acres in the Pacific division” (Vol. V,
      p. 264).

The North has neither slave-holding nor “primitive” latifundia,
      there is no disintegration of them, no growth of the small farms
      at the expense of the large.

The process for the United States as a whole appears as follows:

Size group (acres) | Number of farms(000) | Ditto
(%) | Increase ordecrease
1900 | 1910 | 1900 | 1910
Under 2020 to 4950 to 99100 to 174174 to 499500 to 9991,000 and over | 6741,2581,3661,42286810347 | 8391,4151,4381,51697812550 | 11.721.923.824.815.11.80.8 | 13.222.222.623.815.42.00.8 | +1.5+0.3-1.2-1.0+0.3+0.2

Totals | 5,739 | 6,361 | 100.0 | 100.0 |

Thus, the number of latifundia in proportion to the total number
      of farms remains unchanged. The most characteristic change in
      the relationship between the other groups in the reduction
      in the number of medium-size farms and the strengthening of
      the farms at both ends. The medium-size group (100 to 174 acres)
      and its smaller neighbor have lost ground. The smallest and the
      small farms show the greatest gains, and are followed by the
      large-scale capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres).

Let us take a look at the total acreage.

Size group(acres) | All farmland(000) | Ditto(%) | Increase ordecrease
1900 | 1910 | 1900 | 1910
Under 2020 to 4950 to 99100 to 174174 to 499500 to 9991,000 and over. | 7,18141,53698,592192,680232,95567,864197,784 | 8,79445,378103,121204,481265,28983,653167,082 | 0.95.011.823.027.88.123.6 | 1.05.211.723.430.29.519.0 | +0.1+0.2-0.1+0.4+2.4+1.4-4.6

Totals | 838,592 | 878,798 | 100.0 | 100.0 |

We find above all a very substantial reduction in the share of
      total acreage held by the latifundia. It should be borne in mind
      that an absolute reduction is taking place only in the South and
      the West, where the proportion of un improved land in
      the latifundia in 1910 was 91.5% and 77.1% respectively. There
      was also an insignificant decrease in the share of the top small
      group in the total acreage (—0.1% in the 50-to-99-acre size
      group). The greatest increase was shown by the large-scale
      capitalist groups, the 175-to-499-acre and the 500-to-999-acre
      groups. There was a relatively small increase in the share of
      the very small groups in the acreage. The medium group (100 to
      174 acres) was practically stagnant (+0.4%).

Let us now take a look at the improved acreage.

Size group(acres) | Improved land in farms(000) | Ditto (%) | Increase ordecrease
1900 | 1910 | 1900 | 1910
Under 2020 to 4950 to 99100 to 174174 to 499500 to 9991,000 and over | 6,44033,00167,345118,391135,53029,47424,317 | 7,99236,59671,155128,854161,77540,81731,263 | 1.68.016.228.632.77.15.9 | 1.77.614.926.933.88.56.5 | +0.1-0.4-1.3-1.7+1.1+1.4+0.6

Totals | 414,498 | 478,452 | 100.0 | 100.0 |

The size of the farming enterprise is indicated with
      some degree of approximation and allowing for certain exceptions
      to which I have referred and shall refer again below—only
      by the improved and not the total acreage. Once again we find
      that while the share of the total acreage held by the latifundia
      substantially decreased, their share of the improved acreage increased . In general, all the capitalistic groups
      gained ground, and most of all the 500-to-999-acre group. The
      largest reduction was in the medium-size group (—1.7%),
      followed by all the small groups, with the exception of the
      smallest, the group under 20 acres, which showed a negligible
      increase (+0.1%).

Let us note in advance that the smallest-size group (under 20
      acres) includes farms of less than 3 acres, which are not
      included in American statistics unless they raise at least $250
      worth of products a year. For that reason these tiny farms (of
      less than 3 acres) have a greater volume of production and a
      more highly developed capitalist character than the next group
      up the scale. To illustrate this point here are the returns for
      1900—unfortunately the corresponding returns for 1910 are
      not available:

 | Average per farm:
Size groups(1900)(acres) | Improvedland(acres) | Value ofallproducts($) | Outlayson hiredlabour($) | Value ofimplementsandmachinery($) | Value oflivestock($)
Under 3 ....3 to 10 ....10 to 20 ....20 to 50 .... | 1.75.612.626.2 | 592203236324 | 77181618 | 53424154 | 867101116172

Even the 3-to-10-acre farms, to say nothing of farms with less
      than 3 acres, turn out in some respects to be “larger” (outlays
      on hired labour, value of implements and machinery) than the
      10-to-20-acre farms. [1] Consequently, there is good reason to
      attribute the increase in the share of the total improved land
      held by farms under 20 acres to an increase in the improved land
      of the pronounced capitalist-type farms of the smallest-size
      group.

On the whole, the returns for 1900 and l910 on the distribution
      of improved land in the U.S.A. between small and large farms
      warrant this absolutely definite and indubitable conclusion: the large farms are becoming stronger , the medium
      and the small farms , weaker . Hence, insofar as the capitalist or non-capitalist character
      of agriculture can be deduced from the data relating to farms
      grouped by acreage, the United States in the last decade shows,
      as a general rule, a growth of the large-scale, capitalist farms
      and the obliteration of small farms.

The statistics on the increase in the number of farms and the improved acreage in each group will confirm this conclusion:

 | Increase for 1900-10
(%)
Size groups(acres) | Number offarms | Improvedacreage
Under 2020 to 4950 to 99100 to 174174 to 499500 to 9991,000 and over | +24.5+12.5+ 5.3+ 6.6+12.7+22.2+ 6.3 | +24.1+10.9+ 5.7+ 8.8+19.4+38.5+28.6

Overall increase | +10.9 | +15.4

The largest percentage increase in the improved acreage took
      place in the two topmost groups. The least increase occurred in
      the medium-size group and the next smaller group (50 to 99
      acres). In the two smallest groups the percentage increase in
      the improved acreage was less than the percentage increase in
      the number of farms.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] For 1900 we have returns by size groups for the number of high
      income farms, i.e., farms with a product valued over
      $2,500. Here are these figures: among farms of less than 3
      acres, the proportion of high-income farms was 5.2%; 3 to 10
      acres—0.6%; 10 to 20 acres—0.4%; 20 to 50
      acres—0.3%; 50 to 100—0.6%; 100 to 175—1.4%; 175
      to 260—5.2%; 260 to 500—12.7%; 500 to
      1,000—24.3%; 1,000 and over—39.5%. We find the
      proportion of high-income farms in all the under-20-acre groups
      to be greater than in the 20-to-50-acre group.
— Lenin

 | 7. Machinery and Hired Labour in Agriculture | | | 9. Continued. Statistics on the Value of Farms |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
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------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


9. Continued. Statistics on the Value of Farms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


American statistics, unlike European statistics, determine, for
      each farm and each group of farms, the value of the various
      elements making up the farming enterprise—the land,
      buildings, implements, livestock and the enterprise as a
      whole. These data are probably not quite as accurate as the data
      relating to acreage, but generally speaking they are equally
      reliable, and in addition give some idea of the general state of
      capitalism in agriculture.

In order to supplement the above analysis I shall now take the
      data relating to the total value of farms with all their
      agricultural property, and also the data on the value of
      implements and machinery. I single out implements and machinery
      from among the various elements of the enterprise because they
      are a direct indication of the agricultural operations being
      conducted, and of how they are being conducted i.e., whether
      more or less intensively, and whether they employ technical
      improvements to a greater or lesser extent. Here are the figures
      for the U.S.A.:

Size groups(acres) | Percentage distribution of value
All property on farms | Increase ordecrease | Implements andmachinery | Increase ordecrease
1900 | 1910 |  | 1900 | 1910 |
Under 2020 to 4950 to 99100 to 174174 to 499500 to 9991,000 and over | 3.87.916.728.030.55.97.3 | 3.77.314.627.133.37.16.9 | -0.1-0.6-2.1-0.9+2.8+1.2-0.4 | 3.89.119.329.327.15.16.2 | 3.78.517.728.930.26.34.7 | -0.1-0.6-1.6-0.4+3.1+1.2-1.5

Totals | 100.0 | 100.0 | — | 100.0 | 100.0 | —

The absolute figures show that from 1900 to 1910 the value of
      all farm property more than doubled; it increased from $20,440
      million to $40,991 million, i.e., 100.5%. The rise in the prices
      of farm products and rents put millions and thousands of
      millions of dollars into the pockets of the landowners at the
      expense of the working class. What were the comparative gains of
      the small and the big farms? The above figures supply the
      answer. They show that the latifundia declined (their total
      acreage fell from 23.6% to 19.0%, or 4.6%), and that the small and medium-size farms are being displaced by the
      large , capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres). Adding up the
      figures for the small and medium farms we find that their share
      in the total property decreased from 56.4 to
      52.7%. Adding up the figures for the large farms and the
      latifundia we find that their share increased from
      43.7% to 47.3%. There were absolutely identical changes in the
      distribution of the total value of implements and machinery
      between the small and large farms.

We also observe the phenomenon noted above in the figures
      relating to the latifundia. Their decline is limited to two
      sections: the South and the West. It is a decline, on the one
      hand, of the slave-holding latifundia, and on the other, of the
      primitive-squatter and the primitive-extensive latifundia. We
      find a growth of latifundia in the populated industrial
      North: this applies to the number of farms of this type, their
      total acreage, their improved acreage, their share in the total
      value of all farm property (2.5% in 1900; 2.8% in 1910), and
      their share in the total value of all implements and machinery.

There is moreover a growth of the role of the latifundia not
      only throughout the North in general but also in both the intensive divisions of the North in particular, where there
      is absolutely no colonization, namely New England and the Middle
      Atlantic states. These divisions must be analyzed in greater
      detail because, for one thing, they have misled Mr. Himmer and
      many others by the particularly small average size of their
      farms and a reduction of that size, and, for another, these most
      intensive divisions are most typical of the older, long settled,
      civilized countries of Europe .

Between 1900 and 1910, the number of farms, the total acreage
      and the improved acreage decreased in both these divisions. In
      New England, there was an increase only in the number of the smallest farms, those under 20 acres, by 22.4% (the
      improved land on them increased by 15.5%), and in the number of
      latifundia—by 16.3%, and their improved acreage by
      26.8%. In the Middle Atlantic states there was an increase in
      the smallest farms (+7.7% in the number, and +2.5% in
      the improved acreage) and also in the number of the 175-to-499-acre farms (+1.0%) and the improved land on the 500-to-999-acre
      farms (+3.8%). In both divisions, there was an increase in the share of the smallest farms and the share of the
      latifundia in the total value of all farm property and also of
      implements and machinery. Here are some figures which give a
      clearer and fuller picture of each of these divisions:

 | Percentage increase from 1900 to 1910
New England | Middle Atlantic
Size groups(acres) | Value of allfarm
property | Value of implementsand machinery | Value of all farmproperty | Value ofimplements and machinery
Under 2020 to 4950 to 99100 to 174174 to 499500 to 9991,000 and overTotals | 60.931.427.530.333.053.7102.7

35.6 | 48.930.331.238.544.653.760.5

39.0 | 45.828.323.824.929.431.574.4

28.1 | 42.937.039.943.854.750.865.2

44.1

This makes it clear that in both divisions it was the
      latifundia that gained most ground, showed the greatest
      economic gains, and made the greatest technical advance. Here
      the largest capitalist enterprises are displacing the
      others, the smaller farms. A minimum increase in the value of
      all property and also of implements and machinery is evident in
      the medium-size group and in the small group, but not in the
      smallest. Hence, it is the medium and small farms that mostly
      lag behind.

As for the smallest farms (under 20 acres), their advance in
      both divisions is above the average , and second only to
      the latifundia. We already know the reason: 31 to 33% of the
      crop value in both these intensive divisions comes from the
      highly capitalist crops (vegetables, and also fruits, flowers,
      etc.) which yield extremely great values on very small
      acreage’s. In these divisions, cereal crops account for only 8
      to 30% of the crop value; and hay and forage, 31 to 42%; there
      is a growth of dairy farming which is characterized by smaller -than-average acreages, but a greater -than-average value of produce and capital outlays on
      hired
      labour.

In the most intensive divisions, there is a decrease in the
      average improved acreage in farms because the average is
      obtained by combining the acreage of the latifundia and that of
      the smallest farms, the number of which is increasing more
      rapidly than that of the medium-size farms. The smallest farms
      are increasing in number faster than the latifundia. But there
      is a dual growth of capitalism: it increases-the size of farms
      worked by old technical methods; and creates new enterprises
      raising special commercial crops on very small and tiny
      acreages, with an extremely great volume of production and
      employment of hired labour.

The net result is the greatest gains by the latifundia and the
      giant farms, the obliteration of the medium and small farms, and
      the growth of the smallest highly capitalist enterprises.

We shall presently see how the net result of such
      contradictory—seemingly contradictory—phenomena of
      capitalism in agriculture can be expressed in statistical
      terms.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | 8. Displacement of Small by Big Enterprises. Quantity of Improved Land | | | 10. Defects of Conventional Methods of Economic Analysis. Marx on the Peculiarities Of Agriculture |

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V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


10. Defects of Conventional Methods of Economic Analysis.
      Marx on the Peculiarities Of Agriculture
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The grouping of farms by acreage, total or improved, is the only
      kind of grouping which was used in the American Census reports
      for 1910, and which is used in the great majority of European
      countries. Generally speaking, it is indisputable that apart
      from fiscal, bureaucratic and administrative reasons there are
      scientific considerations arguing the need and correctness of
      this kind of grouping. Still it is obviously inadequate for it
      completely fails to take account of the intensification of
      agriculture, the increasing expenditure of capital per unit of
      area in the form of livestock, machinery, improved seeds, better
      methods of crop cultivation, etc. Meanwhile, with the exception
      of a very few areas and countries with a primitive or purely
      extensive agriculture, it is this very process that is most
      typical for capitalist countries everywhere. For this reason the
      grouping of farms by acreage in the vast majority of cases gives
      an oversimplified and entirely inadequate picture of
      agricultural development in general, and of capitalist
      development in agriculture in particular.

When the verbose economists and statisticians who express the
      most popular bourgeois views hold forth on the dissimilarity of
      conditions in agriculture and industry, the specific nature of
      the former, and so on and so forth, one is always tempted to
      say: Gentlemen! You yourselves are most to blame for maintaining
      and spreading oversimplified and crude notions of evolution in
      agriculture! Remember Marx’s Capital . In it you will
      find references to the extreme variety of forms of land
      ownership, such as feudal, clan, communal (and
      primitive-squatter), state, etc., which capitalism encounters
      when it makes its appearance on the historical scene. Capital
      subordinates to itself all these varied forms of land ownership
      and remolds them after its own fashion, and if one is to
      understand, evaluate and express this process in statistical
      terms, one must learn to modify the formulation of the question
      and the methods of investigation in accordance with the changing form of the process. Capitalism subordinates to itself
      all these forms of land ownership: communal-allotment holdings
      in Russia; squatter tracts or holdings regulated by free
      distribution in a democratic or a feudal state, as in Siberia or
      the American Far West; the slave-holding estates in the American
      South, and the semi-feudal landholdings of the “purely Russian”
      gubernias. In all these cases, the development and victory of
      capitalism is similar, though not identical in form. In order to
      study and understand the precise nature of the process one must
      go beyond the trite petty-bourgeois phrases about “family
      farming” or the routine methods of comparing acreage alone.

You will also find that Marx analyses the origin of the
      capitalist type of ground-rent and its relationship to its
      forerunners in history, such as rent in kind, labour service
      (corvée and its survivals); money-rent (quit-rent,
      etc.). But who among the bourgeois or petty-bourgeois, Narodnik,
      economists or statisticians has given any serious thought to
      applying these theoretical guiding principles of Marx’s to an
      investigation of the rise of capitalism from the
      slave-holding economy of the American South, or from the corvée economy in central Russia?

Finally, you will find throughout Marx’s analysis of ground-rent
      systematic references to the varied conditions of agriculture
      engendered not only by the differences in quality and location
      of the land, but also by the differences in the amount of
      capital invested in it . Now what does application of
      capital to land imply? It implies technical changes in
      agriculture, its intensification, the transition to higher
      systems of field cropping, increased use of artificial
      fertilizers, the wider use and improvement of implements and
      machinery, greater employment of hired labour, etc. A record of
      the acreage alone will not express all these complex and varied
      processes, which all combine to make up the general process of
      the development of capitalism in agriculture.

Russian Zemstvo statisticians, [3] especially those of the “good old”
      pre-Revolutionary days, won universal respect because they
      avoided the routine approach and took a certain scientific
      interest in their business, going beyond its purely fiscal,
      bureaucratic and administrative aspects. They were probably the
      first statisticians to notice the inadequacy of grouping farms
      by acreage alone, and, accordingly, introduced other methods of
      classification, such as by sown area, number of draught animals,
      employment of hired labour, etc. Unfortunately, the sporadic and
      scattered operations of our Zemstvo statistics—in the past
      ever what you might call an oasis in the desert of feudal
      obscurity, bureaucratic routine, and every kind of stupid
      red-tapism—have not yielded any long-term results either
      for Russian or European economics.

It should be noted that the grouping of the returns canvassed in
      modern agricultural censuses is not such a purely technical or
      highly specialized question as may appear at first sight. The
      returns contain an immense wealth of complete information on
      each enterprise as a unit, but due to the clumsy, thoughtless,
      routine approach to tabulation and grouping, this extremely
      valuable material is all lost, wasted, and discolored, which
      often makes it practically useless for any study of the laws of
      agricultural evolution. The returns make it possible to say
      quite categorically whether a farm is a capitalist enterprise,
      and to what extent; whether its farming operations are
      intensive, and to what degree, etc.; but when data relating to
      millions of farms are tabulated the most essential distinctions,
      features and characteristics—which ought to be most effectively brought out , determined and taken
      into account—tend to disappear, so that all the economist
      gets, instead of a sensible statistical review, is routine,
      meaningless columns of figures, a kind of statistical “game of
      digits”.

The American Census of 1910 with which we are now concerned is
      an excellent example of how first-class material of surpassing
      wealth and completeness has been devalued and spoiled by the
      routine approach and scientific ignorance of the
      statisticians. The processing is very much worse than in the
      1900 Census, and even the traditional grouping of farms by
      acreage has not been fully carried out, so that we have no
      possibility of making a comparison between the enterprises in
      the various groups, say, as regards their employment of hired
      labour, the difference in their systems of field cropping, the
      use of fertilizers, etc.

I am compelled, therefore, to turn to the 1900 Census. It gave,
      to my knowledge, the world’s only example of the use of three different methods, instead of one, to group or
      “classify” (as the Americans say) the great abundance of
      material on more than five and a half million farms, collected
      in a single country, at a single time, and under a single
      program.

It is true that here, too, no classification gives all the
      essential characteristics of the type and size of farm. Still
      the resultant picture of capitalist agriculture and the
      capitalist evolution of agriculture is, as I hope to show, very
      much fuller, and reflects the real situation much more correctly
      than can ever be the case when the conventional, one-sided and
      inadequate single method of classification is used. Given the
      opportunity for a fuller study of facts and trends, which may be
      safely considered common to all the capitalist countries of the
      world, the most serious errors and dogmas of bourgeois and
      petty-bourgeois, Narodnik political economy are shown up and
      exposed.

Since the data in question are so important I shall have to
      examine them in greater detail and employ statistical tables
      more frequently than hitherto. Realizing fully that statistical
      tables burden the text and make reading more difficult, I have
      tried to keep them down to a minimum, and hope the reader will
      be lenient with me if I now have to increase that minimum, for
      on the analysis of the points examined here depends not only the
      general conclusion on the principal question—the trend,
      type, character and law of evolution of modern
      agriculture—but also the general assessment of the data
      furnished by modern agricultural statistics which are so often
      cited and just as often distorted.

The first grouping—“by acreage”—gives the following
      picture of American agriculture in 1900:

 | Average per farm
Size group(acres) | Percentage offarms | Percentage of total acreage | Improvedacreage | Outlays
On hired

labour($) | Value ofproduce[1]($) | Value ofimplements
andmachinery($)
Under 33 to 1010 to 2020 to 5050 to 100100 to 175175 to 260260 to 500500 to 10001,000 and over | 0.74.07.121.923.824.88.56.61.80.8 | _ _[2]0.20.74.911.722.912.315.48.123.8 | 1.75.612.626.249.383.2129.0191.4287.5520.0 | 7718161833601091663121,059 | 5922032363245037211,0541,3541,9135,334 | 534241541061552112633771,222

Average for all farms |  |  | 72.3 |  | 656 | 133

It is safe to say that the statistics of any capitalist
      country—the inessential particulars apart—would
      present an absolutely similar picture. This is confirmed by the
      latest censuses in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland and
      Denmark. As total farm acreage increases from group to group,
      there is also an increase in the average improved acreage, the
      average value of the produce, the value of implements and
      machinery, the value of livestock (I have omitted these figures)
      and the expenditure on hired labour (earlier on I pointed out
      the significance of the slight exception of the under-3-acre
      farms and in part of the 3-to-10-acre farms).

It would seem that it could not be otherwise. The increase in
      expenditure on hired labour appears to confirm beyond any doubt
      that the division of farms into large and small on the strength
      of acreage is entirely in accord with their division into
      capitalist and non-capitalist enterprises. Nine-tenths of the
      usual arguments about “small-scale” agriculture are based on
      identification in this way and on such data.

Let us now consider the average per acre of (all) land, instead of per farm:

 | Per acre of all land in dollars
Size group(acres) | Outlayson hiredlabour | Outlayson fertilizers | Value oflivestock | Value ofimplementsand machinery
Under 33 to 1010 to 2020 to 5050 to 100100 to 175175 to 260260 to 500500 to 10001,000 and over | 40.302.951.120.550.460.450.520.480.470.25 | 2.360.600.330.200.120.070.070.040.030.02 | 456.7616.328.305.214.514.093.963.613.162.15 | 27.576.712.951.651.471.141.000.770.570.29

Allowing for some absolutely negligible exceptions we find a
      uniform decline in the characteristics of intensive farming from
      the lower groups to the higher.

The conclusion appears to be incontrovertible that “small-scale”
      production in agriculture is more intensive than large-scale
      production, that the smaller the “scale” of production, the
      greater the intensity and productivity of agriculture, and that,
      “consequently”, capitalist production in agriculture is
      maintained only by the extensive, primitive nature of the
      economy, etc.

In fact, the same conclusions are being drawn all the time, on
      every hand, in all bourgeois and petty-bourgeois
      (opportunist-“Marxist” and Narodnik) writings, for when farms
      are grouped by acreage (which is not only the most common but
      practically the only kind of grouping done) the picture will be
      similar for any capitalist country, that is, it will show the
      same decline in the characteristics of intensive agriculture
      from the lower groups to the higher. There is, for instance, the
      celebrated work of the celebrated Eduard
      David— Socialism and Agriculture —a collection
      of bourgeois prejudices and bourgeois lies under the cover of
      quasi-socialist catchwords. It uses just that kind of data to
      prove the “superiority”, “viability”, etc., of “small-scale”
      production.

One factor has especially facilitated such conclusions. It is
      that data similar to the above are ordinarily available on the
      quantity of livestock; but practically nowhere are data
      collected on hired labour—especially in such a summarized
      form as expenditure on hired labour. But it is precisely the
      data on hired labour that reveal the incorrectness of all such
      conclusions. In effect, if the increase, say, in the value of
      livestock (or the total number of animals, which is the same
      thing) per unit of area down the scale is taken as evidence of
      the “superiority” of “small-scale” agriculture, it should be
      borne in mind that as we go down the scale this “superiority”
      turns out to be connected with increasing expenditure on hired labour! But such an increase in the
      expenditure on hired labour—notice that we have all along
      been dealing with values per unit of area, per acre, per
      hectare, per dessiatine—signifies a growth of the capitalist nature of the enterprise! But the capitalist
      nature of the enterprise clashes with the popular notion of
      “small-scale” production because small-scale production implies
      enterprise which is not based on hired labour.

This seems to create a knot of contradictions. The overall
      acreage returns for the size groups indicate that the “small”
      farms are non-capitalist, whereas the big farms are. Yet the
      very same data show that the “smaller” the enterprise, the more
      intensive it is, and the larger its expenditure on hired labour
      per unit of land area!

In order to explain this let us consider another type of
      grouping.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] Excluding produce used as feed.
— Lenin

[2] Less than 0.1%.
— Lenin

[3] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

 | 9. Continued. Statistics on the Value of Farms | | | 11. A More Exact Comparison of Small and Large Enterprises |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


11. A More Exact Comparison of Small and Large Enterprises
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


As I have already said, American statisticians in this case take
      the value of the products raised on the farm, less those used as
      feed. Taken alone, these data, which appear to be available only
      in American statistics, are, of course, less exact than the
      figures for acreage or livestock, and the like. But considered
      as a whole, in relation to several million farms, and especially
      for the purpose of determining the relative standing of
      the various groups of farms in the country, these data
      undoubtedly cannot be regarded as less suitable than the
      rest. At any rate, these data are a much more direct indication
      than any others of the scale of production , especially
      commercial operations, i.e., the value of the produce raised for
      the market. It should be borne in mind that any discussion of
      agricultural evolution and its laws centers on a consideration
      of small-scale and large-scale production .

What is more, in such cases the point is always the evolution of
      agriculture under capitalism, in connection with capitalism,
      under its impact, or the like. To evaluate this impact the
      greatest efforts must above all be made to draw a line of
      distinction between “natural” and commercial economy in
      agriculture. It is well known that “natural” economy, i.e.,
      production for consumption on the home farm and not for the
      market, has a relatively important part to play in agriculture,
      and is giving way to commercial farming at an extremely slow
      pace. If the accepted principles of political economy are not to
      be applied mechanically but intelligently, the law of the
      displacement of small-scale by large-scale production, for
      instance, can be applied only to commercial
      agriculture. It is hardly likely that anyone will object to this
      proposition from the theoretical standpoint. However, it is the
      rare economist or statistician who will make a special effort to
      bring out, trace and as far as possible take into account, the
      characteristics indicative of the transformation of natural into
      commercial agriculture A great step towards meeting this most
      important theoretical requirement is made by the classification
      of farms according to the money value of produce not used for
      feed.

Let us note that, when considering the undeniable fact that
      small-scale production is being displaced by large-scale
      production in industry, enterprises are always grouped according
      to the value of their product or the number of wage-workers
      employed. In industry, due to its technical peculiarities, the
      matter is much simpler. In. agriculture, because relationships
      are so much more complicated and intertwined, it is a great deal
      harder to determine the scale of operations, the value of the
      product and the extent to which hired labour is employed. For
      the last-named item, it is necessary to take account of the
      total annual employment of hired labour and not merely the
      amount on hand when a census is taken, for agricultural
      operations are of an especially “seasonal” nature; in addition,
      it is necessary to list not only the permanent hired labourers
      but also the day-labourers who play a most important part in
      farming. To say that this is difficult is not to say that it is
      impossible. Rational methods of investigation adapted to the
      technical peculiarities of agriculture, including classification
      by output, the money value of the product, and the frequency and
      amount of hired labour employed, will have to be used on a much
      wider scale, in spite of the thick maze of bourgeois and
      petty-bourgeois prejudices and the efforts to embellish
      bourgeois realities. And it may be safely said that any step
      forward in the use of rational methods of investigation serve to
      confirm the truth that in capitalist society small scale
      production is being displaced by large-scale production both in
      industry and agriculture.

Let us take the 1900 returns for the groups of farms in America
      classified according to the value of their product:

 | Average per farm
Farms classified by value of product ($) | Number Acreage of farms(percentage of total) | Improvedacreage | Hired labour($) | Implementsandmachinery($)
01 and under 5050 and under 100100 and under 250250 and under 500500 and under 1,0001000 and under 2,500Over 2,500 | 0.92.95.321.827.924.014.52.7 | 1.81.22.110.118.123.623.219.9 | 33.418.220.029.248.284.0150.5322.3 | 244471852158786 | 5424284278154283781

Average for all farms | — | — | 72.3 | — | 133

The farms reporting no income, i.e., with a $0 value of product,
      probably consist primarily of newly occupied homesteads on which
      their owners had not yet had time to erect buildings, acquire
      livestock or sow and raise a crop. In a country like America,
      where colonization is still in progress on such a vast scale,
      special importance attaches to the question of how long a farmer
      has been in possession of his farm.

Leaving aside the zero-income farms, we get a picture quite
      similar to the one obtained above by grouping the same data
      according to total farm acreage. As the value of the product
      raised on a farm increases, there is also an increase in the
      average improved acreage, the average expenditure on hired
      labour, and the average value of implements and machinery. By
      and large, the more profitable farms—in terms of gross
      income, i.e., the value of their total product—turn out to
      have the larger acreage. It would appear that the new method of
      grouping has not yielded anything new-at all.

But now let us take the averages (the value of livestock and
      implements, expenditure on hired labour and fertilizers) per
      acre instead of per farm:

 | Per acre of all land ($)
Farms classified by
value of product($) | Outlays

on hired

labour | Outlays on fertilizers | Value oflivestock | Value ofimplementsand machinery
01 and under 5050 and under 100100 and under 250250 and under 500500 and under 1,0001000 and under 2,500Over 2,500 | 0.080.060.080.110.190.360.670.72 | 0.010.010.030.050.070.070.080.06 | 2.971.792.012.463.003.754.633.98 | 0.19.0380.480.620.821.071.210.72

The exceptions in some respects are the zero-income farms, which
      in general are in a very special position, and the farms with
      the highest incomes, which turn out to be less intensive than
      the next group, judging by three out of the four characteristics
      we have chosen. But on the whole we find a uniform increase in the intensity of agriculture with the
      increase in the value of the farm product.

This result is the very opposite of the one obtained when farms
      were grouped by acreage.

The same figures yield diametrically different conclusions,
      depending on the method of grouping.

As the enterprise grows in size the intensity of agriculture declines —if the criterion is acreage, and increases —if the criterion is the value of the
      product.

Which of these two conclusions is the correct one?

It is clear that if the land is not being improved, acreage
      gives no idea at all of the scale of agricultural
      operations (we must not forget that in America farms are grouped
      not only according to the improved acreage, but also by the
      total acreage and that in that country the proportion of the
      improved acreage ranges from 19 to 91% in the farm groups, and
      from 27 to 75%, in the geographical divisions); it gives no
      correct idea at all if besides this there are so many
      substantial differences between farms in the methods of
      cultivation, the intensity of agriculture, the methods of field
      cropping, quantities of fertilizers, the use of machinery, the
      character of livestock farming, etc.

This is known to apply to all capitalist countries and
      even to all those whose agriculture is affected by capitalism.

We see here one of the most profound and general reasons why
      mistaken notions about the “superiority” of small-scale
      agriculture are so tenacious, and why bourgeois and
      petty-bourgeois prejudices of this type prove to be compatible
      with the great progress made in the last few decades by social
      statistics in general, and agricultural statistics in
      particular. To be sure, the tenacity of these mistakes and
      prejudices is also a matter of the interests of the
      bourgeoisie, who seek to cover up the depth of class
      contradictions in contemporary bourgeois society; and everyone
      knows that when it comes to interests, the most incontrovertible
      truths are liable to be questioned.

But we are here concerned only with an examination of the
      theoretical sources of the erroneous notion of the “superiority”
      of small-scale agriculture. There is no doubt at all that of all
      these sources the most important one is the uncritical, routine
      attitude to the hackneyed methods of comparing enterprises only
      by their total acreage or the improved acreage.

The U.S.A. is an exception among capitalist countries in that it
      alone has a great deal of unoccupied, unsettled land, which is
      given away free. Agriculture still can and indeed does develop
      here through the occupation of vacant land, through the
      cultivation of virgin lands never before put to the
      plough—here it does develop in the form of the most
      primitive and extensive livestock and crop raising. There is
      nothing of the kind in the old, civilized countries of
      capitalist Europe. In these countries, agriculture develops mainly through intensive methods, not by increases in
      the quantity of land under cultivation, but by
      improvement in the quality of cultivation, by increases
      in the amount of capital invested in the original acreage. Those
      who compare farms by acreage alone lose sight of this principal
      trend in capitalist agriculture, a trend which is gradually
      becoming the principal one in the United States as well.

The principal trend in capitalist agriculture is the conversion
      of small-scale enterprise, which remains small in terms of acreage, into large-scale enterprise in
      terms of output, in the development of livestock raising, the
      quantity of fertilizers, the scale on which machinery is used,
      and the like.

That is why the conclusion drawn from the comparison of the
      various groups of enterprises by acreage—that the intensity
      of agriculture declines with the greater size of
      enterprise—is entirely incorrect. The only correct
      conclusion, on the contrary, is to be drawn from the comparison
      of the various farms by the value of their product—the
      bigger the enterprise, the greater is the intensity of
      agriculture.

For acreage is only circumstantial evidence of the scale of
      agricultural operations, and the broader and more rapid the
      intensification of agriculture, the less authentic is this
      “evidence”. The value of the product of an enterprise is not
      circumstantial but direct evidence of the scale of its
      operations. Moreover, it is true in every case. By small-scale
      agriculture is always meant the kind that is not based
      on hired labour. But the transition to the exploitation of hired
      labour does not depend only on the extension of the acreage of
      an enterprise on its old technical basis—this occurs only
      in primitive, extensive enterprises—but also on an
      improvement of equipment and techniques and their modernization,
      investment in the same acreage of additional capital in the form
      of, say, new machinery or artificial fertilizers, or of
      increased and improved livestock, etc.

The classification of farms by the value of their product brings
      together enterprises which really have the same scale of
      production , regardless of acreage. Accordingly, a highly intensive enterprise on a small tract of land falls into the
      same group as a relatively extensive enterprise on a large
      tract; both are actually large-scale in terms of production and
      the employment of hired labour.

On the contrary, the classification by acreage throws together
      large and small enterprises, because they happen to have a
      similar acreage; it puts into the same group enterprises with an
      entirely different scale of operations, those in which family
      labour predominates, and those in which hired labour
      predominates. The result is a picture of blunted class
      contradictions within capitalism, a picture which is
      basically incorrect and entirely misleading as to the actual
      state of affairs, but one the bourgeoisie is very fond of. This
      leads to an equally fallacious embellishment of the
      condition of the small farmers , which the bourgeoisie is
      just as fond of. The net result is a vindication of capitalism.

In effect, the fundamental and principal trend of capitalism is
      the displacement of small-scale by large-scale production, both
      in industry and in agriculture. But this displacement should not
      be interpreted merely as immediate
      expropriation. Displacement also implies the ruin of the small
      farmers and a worsening of conditions on their farms, a process
      that may go on for years and decades. This deterioration assumes
      a variety of forms, such as the small farmer’s overwork or
      malnutrition, his heavy debts, worse feed and poorer care of
      livestock in general, poorer husbandry—cultivation,
      fertilization and the like—as well as technical stagnation
      on the farm, etc. If the researcher is to be absolved from the
      charge of wittingly or otherwise playing up to the bourgeoisie
      by giving a false impression of the condition of the small
      farmer, who is being ruined and oppressed, his task is, first
      and foremost, to give a precise definition of the symptoms of
      this ruination, which are not at all simple or uniform; his next
      task is to determine these symptoms, to analyze and, as far as
      possible, to define the extent to which they have spread and how
      they change with time. But present-day economists and
      statisticians hardly pay any attention to this vital aspect of
      the matter.

Just imagine that to a group of 90 small farmers who have no
      capital to improve their farms, who lag behind the times and are
      gradually being ruined the statistician adds 10 farmers who have
      all the capital they need and on equally small tracts of land
      start large-scale operations based on hired labour. The net
      result would be an embellished picture of the condition of all
      the hundred small farmers.

The U.S. Census of 1910 produced just that kind of embellished
      picture—and one that, objectively, favored the
      bourgeoisie—primarily because it discarded the method used
      in 1900 of comparing the acreage grouping and the
      value-of-product grouping. We learn, for instance, only that
      expenditure on fertilizers increased immensely, namely, by 115%,
      i.e., more than double the previous figure, while the
      expenditure on hired labour went up by only 82%, and the total
      crop value by 83%. This is tremendous progress. It is the
      progress of national agriculture as a whole. And, I dare say,
      some economist is likely to draw—if indeed has not yet
      drawn—the conclusion that this is the progress of
      small-scale family farming, for, generally speaking, the returns
      for the size groups by acreage indicate that “small-scale”
      agriculture has a much higher per-acre expenditure on
      fertilizers.

But we now know that such a conclusion would be fallacious,
      because the one thing the grouping of farms by acreage does is
      to lump together farmers on the way to ruin, or at any rate the
      indigent small farmers who cannot afford to buy fertilizers, and capitalists (even if they are small-time capitalists)
      who, on small tracts of land, start large-scale farming
      operations with the use of up-to-date, intensive methods and the
      employment of hired labour.

If small-scale agriculture is being generally displaced by
      large-scale agriculture, as the figures for the total value of
      farm property in 1900 and 1910 show; if, as we shall presently
      see, the raising of highly capitalist crops on small tracts
      developed at an especially fast rate in this period; if,
      according to the general statistics on small and large
      enterprises grouped by the value of their product, expenditures
      for fertilizers increased proportionately with the scale of the
      enterprise—then the conclusion inevitably follows that the
      “progress” in the use of fertilizers from 1900 to 1910 went to
      increase the preponderance of capitalist agriculture over small
      agriculture, which was displaced and suppressed to an even
      greater extent.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | 10. Defects of Conventional Methods of Economic Analysis. Marx on the Peculiarities Of Agriculture | | | 12. Different Types of Enterprises in Agriculture |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


12. Different Types of Enterprises
in Agriculture
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


What I have said above about the intensive, large-scale
      capitalist enterprises on small tracts raises this question: is
      there any reason to believe that the intensification of
      agriculture leads to a reduction of farm acreage? In other
      words, are there any conditions relating to modern farming
      techniques as such that require smaller farm acreage for greater
      intensity of farming?

No answer is provided either by general theoretical reasoning or
      by examples. In each case it is a matter of the concrete
      technical level of agriculture under a given set of conditions,
      and the actual amount of capital required by a given system of
      farming. In theory, any amount of capital can be invested in any
      acreage in any possible way, but it is obvious that “this
      depends” on the existing economic, technical, and cultural
      conditions, etc., and the whole point is the kind of conditions
      prevalent in a given country at a given time. Examples serve no
      purpose at all, because in the sphere of such complex, varied,
      interwoven and contradictory trends in the economics of modern
      agriculture, any number of examples will be found to support
      opposite views. What this calls for above all—and more so
      than in any other sphere—is a picture of the process as
      a whole , with all the trends taken into account and summed
      up in the form of a resultant.

The third method of grouping used by American statisticians in
      1900 helps to find an answer to this question. It is
      classification according to the principal source of
      income . Accordingly, farms fall into one of the following
      groups: (1) hay and grain as the principal source of income; (2)
      miscellaneous; (3) livestock; (4) cotton; (5) vegetable; (6)
      fruit; (7) dairy produce; (8) tobacco; (9) rice; (10) sugar;
      (11) flowers and plants; (12) nursery products; (13) taro; and
      (14) coffee. The last seven groups (8-14) together make up only
      2.2% of the total number of farms, i.e., such an insignificant
      share, that I shall not consider them separately. These groups
      (8-14) are similar to the preceding three groups (5-7) in
      economic characteristics and significance and constitute a
      single type.

Here are the data characterizing the various types of farms;

 | Average per acre of all land ($)
Groups of farms byprincipal sourceof income | Percentageof totalnumber offarms | Averageacreageper farm | Totalimproved | Outlaysonlabour | Outlays on fertilizers | Value ofimplementsandmachinery | Value oflivestock
Hay and grainMiscellaneous | 23.018.5 | 159.3106.9 | 111.146.5 | 0.470.35 | 0.040.08 | 1.040.94 | 3.172.73

LivestockCotton | 27.318.7 | 226.983.6 | 86.142.5 | 0.290.30 | 0.020.14 | 0.660.53 | 4.452.11

VegetablesFruitsDairy produce | 2.71.46.2 | 65.174.8121.9 | 33.841.663.2 | 1.622.460.86 | 0.590.300.09 | 2.122.341.66 | 3.743.355.58

Average for all farms | 100.0 | 146.6 | 72.3 | 0.43 | 0.07 | 0.90 | 3.66

It is clear that the first two groups of enterprises (hay and
      grain, and miscellaneous) may be classified as average both as
      regards the degree of their capitalist development (their
      expenditures for hired labour are nearest the average—0.35
      to 0.47, as against an average of 0.43 for the U.S.A.) and the
      intensiveness of agriculture. All the characteristics of
      intensive operations—expenditures for fertilizers, the
      per-acre value of machinery and livestock—are nearest to
      the general average for the U S.A.

There is no doubt that these two groups are especially typical
      of the majority of agricultural enterprises in general. Hay and
      grain, followed by a combination of various farm products
      (“miscellaneous” sources of income), are the chief types of
      agricultural enterprises in all countries. It would be extremely
      interesting to have more detailed data about these groups, such,
      for instance, as a breakdown into more and less commercialized
      enterprises, etc. But, as we have seen, the American Census,
      having made one step in that direction, did not go forward, but
      went back.

The next two groups, livestock and cotton, are an example of
      farms with the least capitalistic development (the expenditures
      for hired labour: 0.29 to 0.30 as against the average of 0.43),
      and the least intensive methods of agriculture. Their values of
      implements and machinery are the lowest and considerably lower
      than the average (0.66 and 0.53 as against 0.90). Farms whose
      principal source of income is livestock naturally have more
      livestock per acre than the average for the U.S.A. (4.45 as
      against 3.66), but appear to be engaged in extensive livestock
      raising: their expenditures for fertilizers are the minimum,
      they have the largest average acreage (226.9 acres) and the
      smallest proportion of improved acreage (86.1 out of 226.9). The
      cotton farms have a higher than-average figure for fertilizers,
      but other indexes indicative of intensive agriculture (the
      per-acre value of livestock and machinery) are very low.

Finally, the last three groups—vegetables, fruit, and dairy
      produce—include farms which are, first, the smallest in
      acreage (33 to 63 acres of improved land, as against 42 to 86
      and 46 to 111 in the other groups); secondly, the most
      capitalist: they have the heaviest expenditure of hired labour, from 2 to 6 times the average; and thirdly, the most
      intensive. Almost all the indexes of intensive agriculture are
      above the average: the expenditure on fertilizers, the value of
      machinery, the value of livestock (a minor exception are the
      fruit-growing farms which lag behind the average, but are well
      ahead of the farms which derive their income chiefly from hay
      and grain).

Let us now see what is the share of these highly capitalist
      farms in the country’s economy. But we must first examine their
      intensive character in somewhat greater detail.

Take the farms whose main income is derived from vegetables. It
      is well known that in all capitalist countries the development
      of towns, factories, industrial settlements, railway stations,
      ports, etc., stimulates a demand for this type of product, it
      pushes up their prices, and increases the number of agricultural
      enterprises raising them for the market. The average “vegetable”
      farm has less than one-third of the improved acreage of
      an “ordinary” farm deriving income chiefly from hay and grain:
      the former is 33.8 acres, and the latter, 111.1. This means that
      this particular technical level with this particular
      accumulation of capital in agriculture requires “vegetable”
      farms of smaller acreage; in other words, if capital invested in
      agriculture is to yield a not less-than average profit, a
      vegetable-raising farm should have, technology being what it is,
      a smaller acreage than a hay-and grain farm.

But that is not all. The growth of capitalism in agriculture
      consists above all in a transition from natural agriculture to
      commercial agriculture. This is being constantly forgotten, and
      must be brought up again and again. Commercial agriculture, it
      should be noted, does not develop along the “simple” lines
      imagined or projected by bourgeois economists, namely, through
      an ever greater output of the same products. Not at
      all. Commercial agriculture very frequently develops by shifting
      from one type of product to another, and the shift from hay and
      grain to vegetables is very common. But what bearing does it
      have on the question before us, that of farm acreage and the
      growth of capitalism in agriculture?

Such a shift signifies the split-up of a “large”
      111.1-acre farm into more than three “small” 33.8-acre
      farms. The old farm produced a value of $760—the average
      value of its products, less the feed raised on the farm, whose
      chief source of income is hay and grain. Each of the new farms
      produces a value of $665, or a total of $665 x 3 = $1,995, i.e.,
      more than double the original figure.

As large-scale production displaces small-scale production, farm
      acreage is reduced .

The average expenditure on hired labour on the old farm was $76;
      on the new farm it is $106, or almost half as much again, while
      acreage is one-third or even less. Expenditure on fertilizers
      has gone up from $0.04 per acre to $0.59, an increase of almost
      15 times; the value of implements and machinery has doubled from
      $1.04 to $2.12, etc.

There will, of course, be the usual objection that the number of
      such highly capitalist farms with specialized “commercial” crops
      is negligible, as compared with the total. The answer is that,
      first, the number and the role , the economic role of
      such farms, are much greater than is generally realized; and
      secondly—and this is the most important point— it
      is such crops that are developed more rapidly than
      others in the capitalist countries. That is just why a reduction
      in farm acreage with the intensification of agriculture so often
      implies an increase and not a reduction in the scale of
      operations, an increase and not a decrease in the exploitation
      of hired labour.

Here are the exact American statistics for the country as a
      whole. Let us take all the special, or “commercial”, crops
      listed above under heads 5-14, namely, vegetables, fruit, dairy
      produce, tobacco, rice, sugar, flowers, nursery products, taro,
      and coffee. In 1900, these products were the principal source of income for 12.5% of all farms in the U.S.A. This is
      one-eighth, a very small minority. Their acreage was 8.6%, or
      one-twelfth, of the total. But to continue. Let us take the
      total value of the products of American agriculture (less
      feed). Of this value the farms in question accounted for as much
      as 16%, i.e., their share of the value was almost double their
      share of the acreage.

This means that the productivity of labour and land on these
      farms was almost double the average.

Let us take the sum total of expenditure on hired labour in
      American agriculture. Of this total, 26.6%, i.e., over
      one-quarter, fell to the farms in question. This is more than
      three times their share of the acreage, and more than three
      times the average. This means that these farms are very much
      more capitalist than the average.

Their share of the total value of implements and machinery is
      20.1%, and of the expenditures for fertilizers, 31.7%, i.e.,
      slightly less than one-third of the total, and nearly four times the average.

Consequently, an incontrovertible fact is established for the
      country as a whole. It is that the especially intensive farms
      have an especially small acreage, especially great employment of
      hired labour, and especially high productivity of labour; that
      the economic role of these farms in the nation’s agriculture is
      two, three and more times greater than their proportion of the
      total number of farms, to say nothing of their share of the
      total acreage.

As time goes on, does the role of these highly capitalist and
      highly intensive crops and farms increase or decrease in
      comparison with other crops and farms?

The answer is provided by a comparison of the last two census
      reports: their role is unquestionably increasing . Let
      us take the acreage planted to the various crops. From 1900 to
      1910, the acreage under grain increased by only 3.5% for the
      U.S.A.; under beans, peas, and the like, 26.6%; hay and forage,
      17.2%; cotton, 32%; vegetables, 25.5%; sugar-beets, sugar-cane,
      etc., 62.6%.

Let us examine the crop returns. From 1900 to 1910, the grain
      crop went up only 1.7%; beans, 122.2%; hay and forage, 23%;
      sugar-beets, 395.7%; sugar-cane, 48.5%; potatoes, 42.4%; grapes,
      97.6%; there was a poor crop of berries, apples, etc., in 1910,
      but the orange and lemon crops, etc., were treble those of
      1900.

Thus, the apparently paradoxical but nevertheless proven fact
      bas been shown to apply to U.S. agriculture as a whole that,
      generally speaking, small-scale production is not only being
      displaced by large scale production, but also that this
      displacement is taking place in the following form:

Small-scale production is being crowded out by large-scale production
      through the displacement of farms which are “larger” in acreage,
      but are less productive, less intensive and less capitalist, by
      farms which are “smaller” in acreage, but are more productive,
      more intensive, and more capitalist.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | 11. A More Exact Comparison of Small and Large Enterprises | | | 13. How the Displacement of Small-Scale by Large-Scale Production in Agriculture is Minimised |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


13. How the Displacement of Small-Scale by Large-Scale
      Production in Agriculture is Minimised
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The objection may be raised that if the displacement of
      small-scale production “also” proceeds in the form of
      the intensification (and “capitalization”) of operations on the
      smaller-size farms , is the grouping by acreage of any
      use at all? Is this not a case of two contradictory tendencies
      which make any general conclusion impossible?

This objection can be met by a complete picture of
      American agriculture and its evolution; to meet it we must try
      to compare all three methods of grouping which present, as it
      were, the maximum of information social statistics has produced
      in the sphere of agriculture in recent years.

Such a comparison
      is possible. All it calls for is a table which may at first
      sight appear to be so abstract and complex that it may “scare”
      the reader away. However, it takes only a little bit of
      concentration to “read”, understand and analyzes the table.

To compare the three different groupings we need take only their percentage ratios . All the necessary calculations are
      given in the American Census report for 1900. Each grouping is
      tabulated under three main heads. By acreage we have:
      (1) small farms (under 100 acres), (2) medium (100 to 175
      acres), and (3) large (175 and over). By value of product we
      have: (1) non-capitalist farms (under $500), (2) medium ($500
      to 1.000), and (3) capitalist ($1,000 and over). By the
      principal source of income we take (1) slightly capitalist
      (livestock, cotton), (2) medium (hay and grain; and
      miscellaneous), and (3) highly capitalist (the special
      “commercial” crops listed above, in Chapter 12, under heads 5 to
      14).

For every group we first take the percentage of farms, i.e., the
      number of farms in a given group expressed as a percentage ratio
      of the total number of farms in the U.S.A. We then take the
      percentage of all land, i.e., the total acreage in a given group
      expressed as a percentage ratio of the total acreage of all
      farms in the U.S.A. The acreage serves as an indicator of the
      extensive character of the enterprise (unfortunately, the only
      figures available are for total acreage, instead of the
      improved acreage only, which would have been more exact). If the
      percentage share of the total acreage is higher than
      the percentage share of the number of farms, for example, if
      17.2% of the farms have 43.1% of the land, it is evident that we
      are dealing with large farms, larger-than-average farms, which
      are besides more than double the size of the average farm. The
      reverse is true if the percentage of land is lower than
      the percentage of farms.

Next come the indexes of intensiveness of agriculture:
      the value of implements and machinery, and the total expenditure
      on fertilizers. Here, too, we take the value and the expenditure
      in the given group expressed as a percentage share of the totals
      for the country as a whole. Here again, if the percentage is higher than the percentage of land , the
      conclusion is that intensiveness is above the average,
      etc.

Finally, in order to determine exactly the capitalist character
      of the enterprises, the same method is applied to the total
      expenditure on hired labour; while in order to determine the
      scale of production this is done in relation to the total value
      of the agricultural product for the entire country.

This has produced the following table, which I shall now proceed
      to explain and analyze:

Number of farms | By principal source of income | By farm acreage | By value of product |
Slightlycapitalist | Medium | Highlycapitalist | Small | Medium | Large | Non-capitalist | Medium | Capitalist
46.0 | 41.5 | 12.5 | 57.5 | 24.8 | 17.7 | 58.8 | 24.0 | 17.2 | Index of extensiveness of agriculture
Total acreage | 59.2 | 38.5 | 8.6 | 17.5 | 22.9 | 59.6 | 33.3 | 23.6 | 43.1
Constant capital | Value of implementsand machineryOutlays on fertilizers | 37.236.5 | 42.731.8 | 20.131.7 | 31.741.9 | 28.925.7 | 39.432.4 | 25.329.1 | 28.026.1 | 46.744.8 | Index of intensiveness of agriculture
Variable capital | Outlays on

	      hired labour | 35.2 | 38.2 | 26.6 | 22.3 | 23.5 | 54.2 | 11.3 | 19.6 | 69.1 | Index of capitalist character of enterprise
Scale of production | Value of product | 45.0 | 39.0 | 16.0 | 33.5 | 27.3 | 39.2 | 22.1 | 25.6 | 52.3

Let us consider the first grouping—according to the
      principal source of income. Here farms are grouped, so to say,
      according to their line of farming, which is to some extent
      similar to the grouping of industrial enterprises by branches of
      industry. But the picture is immensely more complex in
      agriculture.

The first column shows the group of slightly capitalist
      farms. It comprises almost one-half the total number of
      farms—46%. They own 52.9% of the total a acreage, i.e.,
      they are larger than average (this group includes both the very
      large, extensive, livestock farms and the smaller-than-average
      cotton farms). Their shares of the value of machinery (37.2%)
      and the expenditure on fertilizers (36.5%) are lower than their
      acreage percentages, which means that their intensiveness is
      lower than the average. The same thing is true of the capitalist
      character of the enterprise (35.2%) and the value of the product
      (45%). Hence, their productivity of labour is lower than the
      average.

The second column shows the medium farms. Because farms which
      are “medium” in every respect fall into the medium
      group by all three methods of grouping, we find here
      that all their percentage ratios are closer to each
      other than in any of the other groups. The fluctuations are
      relatively small.

The third column shows the highly capitalist farms. I gave above
      a detailed analysis of what the figures in this column mean. Be
      it noted that only for this type of farm do we have
      accurate and comparable data both for 1900 and 1910—data
      testifying that these highly capitalist crops have a faster
      than-average rate of development.

In what way is this more rapid development evident in the
      ordinary classification in use in most countries? This is shown
      in the next column: the small farms grouped by acreage.

This group consists of a great number of farms (57.5 por cent of
      the total). Its acreage is only 17.5% of the total, i.e., less
      than one-third of the average. Hence, this is the “poorest”
      group, the most “land-starved” group. But then we and that it
      has a higher-than-average intensiveness of agriculture (the
      value of machinery and expenditures for fertilizers); that it is
      more capitalist (expenditures for hired labour); and that it has
      a higher -than-average-productivity of labour (value of
      product): 22.3 to 41.9% with 17.5% of the acreage.

What is the explanation? Obviously that an especially large
      number of highly capitalist farms—see the
      preceding vertical column—fall into this “small”-acreage
      group. A minority of rich, capital-owning farmers
      conducting large scale capitalist operations on small tracts of
      land are added to a majority of really small farmers who have
      little land and little capital. Such farmers make up only 12.5%
      ( = the percentage of highly capitalist farms) of the total in
      America, which means that even if they were all to be put into
      this one group of small-acreage farms, 45% of the farmers in
      that group (57.5—12.5) would still be short of land and
      capital. Actually, of course, a part of the highly capitalist
      farms, even if only a small one, consists of medium and
      large-acreage farms, so that the figure of 45% in fact understates the actual number of farmers who have
      little land and no capital.

It will be easily seen how the condition of these 45%—a
      minimum of 45%—of the farmers who are poor in land and
      capital is embellished by the inclusion into the same
      group of some 12,10 or so per cent of farmers who are supplied
      with higher-than-average amounts of capital, machinery, money to
      buy fertilizers, hire labour, and the rest of it.

I shall not dwell separately on the medium and large farms of
      this grouping, for this would be to repeat, in slightly
      different words what has been said about the small farms. For
      instance, if the data on the small-acreage farms put a better
      complexion on the oppressed condition of small-scale production , the data on the large-acreage farms
      obviously minimize the actual concentration of
      agriculture by large-scale production. We shall presently see an
      exact statistical expression of this minimized concentration.

We thus arrive at the following general proposition which may be
      formulated as a law applicable to the grouping of farms by
      acreage in any capitalist country:

The broader and more rapid the intensification of agriculture,
      the more the classification by acreage serves to give a rosy picture of the oppressed condition of
      small-scale production in agriculture, the condition of the
      small farmer who is short of both land and capital; the more it serves to blunt the real sharpness
      of the class contradiction between the prospering large-scale
      producer and the small-scale producer going to the wall; the
      more it serves to minimize the concentration of capital
      in the hands of big operators and the displacement of the
      small.

This is graphically confirmed by the third, and last,
      classification, according to the value of product. The
      percentage of non-capitalistic farms (or not very profitable
      farms in terms of gross income) is 58.8%, i.e., even somewhat
      more than the “small” farms (57.5%). They have much more land than the group of “small” farmers (33.3% as
      against 17.5%). But their share of the total value of the
      product is one-third smaller : 22.1% as against 33.5%!

What is the explanation? It is that this group does not include
      the highly capitalistic farms on small tracts which have artificially and falsely inflated the small farmers’
      share of the capital in the form of machinery, fertilizers,
      etc.

Thus, the oppression and dispossession—and hence the
      ruin—of the small producer in agriculture turn out
      to be much more advanced than one would suppose from
      the data on small farms .

The returns for the small and large farms, grouped by acreage,
      take no account of the role of capital , and the failure
      to reckon with this “trifle” in capitalist enterprise distorts
      the condition of the small producer, puts a false colour on it,
      for it “could be” tolerable “but for” the existence of capital,
      i.e., the power of money, and the relationship between the hired
      labourer and the capitalist, between the farmer and the merchant
      and creditor, etc.

For that reason the concentration of agriculture as shown by the
      large farms is much lower than its concentration as shown by
      large-scale, i . e ., capitalist, production:
      39.2% of the value of the product (slightly more than double the
      average) is concentrated on 17.7% of “large” farms, while 52.3%
      of the total value of the product, i.e., more than three times the average, is concentrated on 17.2% capitalist farms.

In the country which practices the free distribution of vast
      tracts of unoccupied land, and which the
Manilovs [1] consider a
      country of “family” farms, more than one-half of the
      total agricultural production is concentrated in about one-sixth
      of the capitalist enterprises, whose expenditure on
      hired labour is four times greater than the per-farm average
      (69.1% on 17.2% of the total number of farms), and are half as
      great again as the per-acre average (69.1% of the expenditure on
      hired labour on farms owning 43.1% of the total amount of
      land).

At the other pole, more than one-half, almost three-fifths, of
      the total number of farms (58.8%) are non-capitalist. They have
      one-third of the land (33.3%) but on it they have less than the
      average quantity of machinery (25.3% of the value of machinery);
      they use less fertilizers than the average (29.1% of the
      expenditures for fertilizers) and so its productivity is only two-thirds of the average . With one-third of the total
      acreage, this immense number of-farms, which suffer the greatest
      oppression under the yoke of capital, produce less than
      one-quarter (22.1%) of the total product and of its total
      value.

Consequently, we arrive at a general conclusion concerning the
      significance of classification by acreage, namely, that it is
      not entirely useless. The one thing that should never be
      forgotten is that it understates the displacement of small-scale
      by large-scale production, and that the understatement increases
      with the pace and scope of intensification of agriculture, and
      with the gap between the amounts of capital invested by the
      farms per unit of land. With modern methods of research, which
      produce an abundance of sound information about each farm, it
      would, for instance, be sufficient to combine two methods of
      classification—say, each of the five acreage groups could
      bo broken down into two or three subgroups according to the
      employment of hired labour. If this is not done it is largely
      because of the fear of giving a much too naked picture of
      reality, a much too striking picture of the oppression,
      impoverishment, ruin, expropriation of the mass of small
      farmers, whose condition is so “conveniently” and “unnoticeably”
      made to look better by the “model” capitalist enterprises, which
      are also “small” in acreage and which are a small minority
      within the mass of the dispossessed. From the scientific
      standpoint no one would dare deny that not only land, but also
      capital has a part to play in modern agriculture. From the
      standpoint of statistical techniques, or the amount of
      statistical work involved, a total number of 10 to 15 groups is
      not at all excessive in com parison, for instance, with the 18
      plus 7 groups based on acreage given in the German statistical
      report of 1907. This report, which classifies an abundance of
      material about 5,736,082 farms into the above number of acreage
      groups, is an example of bureaucratic routine, scientific
      rubbish, a meaningless juggling of figures, for there is not
      a shadow of any reasonable, rational, theoretical or
      practical ground for accepting such a number of groups as
      typical.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

 | 12. Different Types of Enterprises in Agriculture | | | 14. The Expropriation of the Small Farmers |

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V. I. Lenin
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------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


14. The Expropriation of the Small Farmers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The question of the expropriation of the small farmers is
      immensely important to an understanding and assessment of
      capitalism in agriculture in general, and it is highly
      characteristic of modern political economy and statistics, which
      are saturated through and through with bourgeois notions and
      prejudices, that this question is either practically not
      considered at all or is given the least attention.

The general statistics in all capitalist countries show that the
      urban population is growing at the expense of the rural, that
      the population is abandoning the countryside. In the U.S.A.,
      this process is steadily advancing. The proportion of the urban
      population increased from 29.5% in 1880, to 36.1% in 1890, 40.5%
      in 1900, and 46.3% in 1910. In every part of the country the
      urban population is growing more rapidly than the rural
      population: from 1900 to l910, the rural population in the
      industrial North-went up by 3.9% and the urban by 29.8%; in the
      former slave-holding South, the rural population increased by
      14.8%, and the urban, by 41.4%; in the homestead West, the
      figures were 49.7 and 89.6%, respectively.

One should think that such a universal process would also have
      to be studied in the taking of agricultural censuses. A most
      important question from the scientific standpoint naturally
      arises as to what sections, strata or groups of the rural
      population provide the fugitives from the countryside and in
      what circumstances. Since highly detailed information about each
      agricultural enterprise and about each animal in it is collected
      every ten years, it would be no trouble at all to include
      questions as to how many and what kind of farms were sold or
      rented with an eye to moving into town, and how many members of
      households abandoned farming temporarily or for good, and in
      what circumstances. But no such questions are asked: the
      investigation does not go beyond the official stereotyped
      statement: “The rural population decreased from 59.5% in 1900 to
      53.7% in 1910.” The census-takers seem to have no inkling of the
      mass of misery, oppression and ruin concealed behind these
      routine figures. As a general rule, bourgeois and
      petty-bourgeois economists turn a blind eye to the obvious
      connection between the night of the population from the
      countryside and the ruin of the small producers.

There is no alternative, therefore, but to try and bring
      together the relatively meager and very badly compiled data on
      the expropriation of the small farmers gleaned from the 1910
      Census report.

There are the figures on the forms of farm tenure: the number of
      owners, subdivided into full and part owners;
      and the number of share-cropping tenants and cash-paying
      tenants. These figures are tabulated for the various divisions
      but not the farm groups.

Here is the first picture we get from the totals for 1900 and 1910:

Total rural population increaseTotal number of farms increasedTotal number of owners increasedTotal number offullowners increased | 11.2%10.9%8.1%4.8%

This picture is a clear indication of the growing expropriation
      of small-scale agriculture. The rural population is increasing
      more slowly than the urban. The number of farmers is increasing
      more slowly than the rural population; the number of owners is
      increasing more slowly than the number of farmers; the number of full owners—more slowly than the number of owners
      in general.

The proportion of owners in the total number of farmers has been
      decreasing steadily over a period of several decades, as
      follows:

1880189019001910 | 74.0%71.6%64.7%63.0%

There is a corresponding growth in the proportion of tenants,
      with the number of share-cropping tenants going up faster than
      that of cash-paying tenants. The number of share-cropping
      tenants was 17.5% in 1880; then it rose to 18.4% and 22.2%, and
      finally to 24% in 1910.

It is evident from the following figures that the decrease in
      the proportion of owners and the increase in the proportion of
      tenants is, on the whole, an indication of the dispossession and
      displacement of the small farmers:

 | Percentage of farms owning
Class of farm | domestic animals | horses
 | 1900 | 1910 | +/- | 1900 | 1910 | +/-
OwnersTenants | 96.794.2 | 96.192.9 | -0.6-1.3 | 85.067.9 | 81.560.7 | -3.5-7.2

According to all the returns for both census years the owners
      are economically stronger. The condition of the tenants is
      deteriorating more rapidly than that of the owners.

Let us examine separately the figures for the sections.

The greatest number of tenants, as I have already said, is in
      the South, and there tenancy has the fastest rate of growth: it
      rose from 47% in 1900, to 49.6% in 1910. Capital defeated
      slavery half a century ago, merely to restore it now in
      a new form as share tenancy.

In the North, the number of tenants is considerably smaller and
      is growing at a much slower rate: it went up from 26.2% in 1900,
      to only 26.5% in 1910. The West has the smallest number of
      tenants, and it is the only section where tenancy,
      instead of increasing, decreased: it fell from 16.6% in 1900 to
      14.0% in l910. “A very low proportion of tenant farms,” says the
      Census report for 1910, “is also shown for the Mountain and
      Pacific divisions,
[the two divisions constituting “The West”] [1] ,

where it is doubtless attributable mainly to
      the fact that those divisions have been only recently settled
      and that many of the farmers in them are homesteaders who have
      obtained their land from the Government” free or for a very
      small price (Vol. V, p. 104).

This is a striking example of the peculiar characteristic of the
      U.S.A., to which I have repeatedly referred, namely, the
      availability of unoccupied, free land. This explains, on the one
      hand, the extremely rapid and extensive development of
      capitalism in America. The absence of private property in land
      in some parts of a vast country does not exclude
      capitalism—our Narodniks should make a note of
      this!—on the contrary, it broadens its base, and
      accelerates its development. Upon the other hand, this
      peculiarity, which is entirely unknown in the old, long-settled
      capitalist countries of Europe, serves in America to cover
      up the expropriation of the small farmers—a process
      already under way in the settled and most industrialized parts
      of the country.

Let us take the North. We get the following picture:

 | 1900 | 1910 | + or -% |
Total rural population increase (000,000)Total number of farms increased (000)Total number of owners increased (000)Total number offullowners increased (000) | 22.22,8742,0881,794 | 23.12,8912,0911,749 | +3.9+0.6+0.1-2.5 |

We see not only a relative reduction in the number of owners,
      not only a decline in their proportion of the total number of
      farmers, etc., but even an absolute decrease in the
      number of owners, against a background of growing production in
      the main section of the U.S.A., which embraces 60% of the
      country’s improved acreage!

It should, besides, be borne in mind that in one of the four
      divisions making up the North, namely, the West North Central, the allotment of homesteads continues to this very day ,
      and that 54 million acres were allotted in the 10 years from
      1901 to 1910.

The tendency of capitalism to expropriate small-scale
      agriculture is so strong that the American “North” shows an absolute decrease in the number of landowners, in
      spite of the distribution of tens of millions of acres of
      unoccupied, free land.

Only two factors still serve to paralyze this tendency in the
      U.S.A.: (1) the existence of the still unparcelled slave-holding
      plantations in the South, with its oppressed and downtrodden
      Negro population; and (2) the fact that the West is still partly
      unsettled. Both these factors tend to widen the future base of
      capitalism, and so prepare the conditions for its even more
      extensive and more rapid development. The sharpening of
      contradictions and the displacement of small-scale production
      are not removed but are transferred to a larger arena. The
      capitalist fire appears to be “damped down”—but at the
      price of an even greater accumulation of new and more
      inflammable material.

Furthermore, on the question of the expropriation of small-scale
      agriculture, we have the returns for the number of farms owning
      livestock. Here are the figures for the U.S.A.

Percentage of farms owning | 1900 | 1910 | + or - |
Domestic animals in generalDairy cowsHorses | 95.878.779.0 | 94.980.873.8 | -0.9+2.1-5.2 |

These figures show, on the whole, a reduction in the number of
      owners in proportion to the total number of farmers. The
      increase in the percentage of those who owned dairy cows was
      smaller than the drop in the percentage of those who owned
      horses.

Let us now examine the figures for farms grouped in relation to
      the two major kinds of livestock.

Size group (acres) | Percentage of farmsowning dairy cows | + or -
1900 | 1910
Under 2020 to 4950 to 99100 to 174174 to 499500 to 9991,000 and over | 49.565.984.188.992.690.382.9 | 52.971.287.189.893.589.686.0 | +3.4+5.3+3.0+0.9+0.9-0.7+3.1

Average for the U.S.A. | 78.7 | 80.8 | +2.1

We find that the greatest increase was in the number of small
      farms with dairy cows, then came the latifundia, and then the
      medium-size farms. There was a decrease in the percentage of
      farms reporting dairy cows among the big owners, with 500 to 999
      acres of land.

On the whole, this seems to indicate a gain for small-scale
      agriculture. Let us recall, however, that in farming the
      ownership of dairy cattle has a twofold significance: on the one
      hand, it may generally indicate a higher living standard and
      better conditions of nutrition. On the other hand, it
      signifies—and rather more frequently—a development of
      one branch of commercial farming and cattle-breeding: the
      production of milk for the market in the towns and industrial
      centers. We saw above that farms of this type, the “dairy”
      farms, were classified by American statisticians under a special
      head, according to the principal source of income. A
      characteristic of this group is that it has a smaller -than-average total and improved acreage, but a greater -than-average value of output, and a double-the-average employment of hired labour per acre. The increasing importance
      of small farms in dairy farming may simply mean—and most
      likely does mean—a growth of capitalist dairy
      farms of the type described, on small tracts of land. For the
      sake of comparison here are some figures on the concentration of dairy cattle in America:

Sections | Average number ofdairy cows per farm | Increase
1890 | 1900
The NorthThe SouthThe West | 4.82.35.0 | 5.32.45.2 | +0.5+0.1+0.2

Overall average | 3.8 | 4.0 | +0.2

We find that the North, which is richest of all in dairy cattle,
      also showed the greatest increase in wealth. Here is a
      distribution of this increase among the groups:

The North

Size group (acres) | % increase or decrease in number of dairy cows from 1900 to 1910
Under 2020 to 4950 to 99100 to 174174 to 499500 to 9991,000 and over | -4 (+10.0 in the number of farms)-3 (-12.6 in the number of farms)+ 9 (-7.3 in the number of farms)+14 (+2.2 in the number of farms)+18 (+12.7 in the number of farms)+29 (+40.4 in the number of farms)+18 (+15.4 in the number of farms)

Overall increase | +14 (+15.4 in the number of farms)

The more rapid growth in the number of small farms with
      dairy cattle did not prevent its more rapid concentration in the large enterprises.

Let us now turn to the figures on the number of farms reporting
      horses. This information about draught animals is an indication
      of the general pattern of farming and not of any special branch
      of commercial farming.

Size group (acres) | Percentage of farmsreporting horses | Decrease
1900 | 1910
Under 2020 to 4950 to 99100 to 174174 to 499500 to 9991,000 and over | 52.466.382.288.692.093.794.2 | 48.957.477.686.591.093.294.1 | -3.5-8.9-4.6-2.1-1.0-0.5-0.1

Average for the U.S.A. | 79.0 | 73.8 | -5.2

We find that as we go down the size-group scale there is a
      rising number of farms not reporting horses. With the exception
      of the smallest farms (under 20 acres) which, as we know,
      include a comparatively greater number of capitalistic farms
      than the neighboring groups, we observe a rapid decrease in the
      number of horseless farms and a much slower increase in their
      number. The use of steam ploughs and other engines on the rich
      farms may partly compensate for the reduction in draught
      animals, but such an assumption is out of the question for the
      mass of the poorer farms.

Finally, the growth of expropriation is also evident from the
      returns on the number of mortgaged farms:

Sections | Percentage of mortaged farms
1890 | 1900 | 1910
The North. . . . .The South. . . . .The West . . . . . | 40.35.723.1 | 40.917.221.7 | 41.923.528.6

Average for the U.S.A. | 28.2 | 31.0 | 33.6

The percentage of mortgaged farms is on a steady increase in all
      sections, and it is highest in the most populous industrialized
      and capitalist North. American statisticians point out (Vol. V,
      p. 159) that the growth in the number of mortgaged farms in the
      South is probably due to the “parceling out” of the plantations,
      which are sold in lots to Negro and white farmers, who pay only
      a part of the purchase price, the rest being covered by a
      mortgage on the property. Consequently a peculiar buying-up
      operation is under way in the slave-holding South. Let us
      note that in 1910 Negroes in the U.S.A. owned only 920,883
      farms, i.e., 14.5% of the total; between 1900 and 1910, the
      number of white farms increased 9.5%, and that of Negro farms,
      twice as fast—19.6%. The Negro urge to emancipation from
      the “plantation owners” half a century after the “victory” over
      the slave-owners is still marked by an exceptional intensity.

The American statisticians also point out that the mortgaging of
      a farm does not always indicate lack of prosperity; it is
      sometimes a way of obtaining capital for land improvement; and
      the like. This is indisputable, but this indisputable
      observation should not conceal the fact—as is much too
      often the case with bourgeois economists—that only a
      well-to-do minority are in a position to obtain capital for
      improvements, etc., in this way, and to employ it productively;
      the majority are further impoverished and fall into the clutches
      of finance capital assuming this particular form.

Researchers could—and should—have paid much more
      attention to the dependence of farmers on finance capital. But
      although this aspect of the matter is immensely important, it
      has remained in the background.

The growth in the number of mortgaged farms in any case means
      that the actual control over them is transferred to the
      capitalists. It stands to reason that apart from officially
      recorded and notarized mortgages, a considerable number of farms
      are steeped in private debt, which is not covered by strict
      legal instruments and is not recorded by the census.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] Interpolations in square brackets (within passages quoted by Lenin) have
been introduced by Lenin, unless otherwise indicated.— Ed .

 | 13. How the Displacement of Small-Scale by Large-Scale Production in Agriculture is Minimised | | | 15. A Comparative Picture of Evolution in Industry and Agriculture |

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V. I. Lenin
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------------------------------------------------------------
New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


15. A Comparative Picture of Evolution in Industry and Agriculture
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


American census statistics, for all their shortcomings, compare
      favorably with those of other countries because of the
      completeness and uniformity of the methods used. This makes it
      possible to compare the returns for industry and agriculture for
      1900 and 1910, and to contrast the over all picture of the
      structure of both sectors of the economy and the evolution of
      this structure. One of the most popular ideas in bourgeois
      economics—an idea, incidentally, which Mr. Himmer
      repeats—is to contrast industry and
      agriculture. Let us see, in the light of a mass of precise data,
      what truth there is in such a contrast.

Let us begin with the number of enterprises in industry and in agriculture.

 | Number of enterprises(000) | Increase(%) | Growth of urbanand rural population(%)
 | 1900 | 1910
IndustryAgriculture | 207.55,737 | 268.56,361 | +29.4+10.9 | +34.8+11.2

The enterprises in agriculture are much more numerous and much
      smaller. That is an expression of its backwardness,
      parcellization, and dispersion.

The number of enterprises increases much more slowly in
      agriculture than in industry. There are two factors in the
      United States which do not exist in other leading countries, and
      which greatly intensify and accelerate the growth in the number
      of enterprises in agriculture. They are, first, the continued
      parceling out of the slave-holding latifundia in the South and
      “buying-up” by Negro and also by white farmers of small parcels
      from the “planters”; secondly, the availability of an immense
      quantity of unoccupied, free land, which is distributed by the
      government to all applicants. Nevertheless the number of
      enterprises in agriculture is increasing at a slower rate than
      in industry.

The reason is twofold. On the one hand, agriculture to a rather
      large extent retains the character of a “natural” economy, and
      various operations once performed by members of a peasant
      household are gradually branching off from agriculture—for
      example, the making and repair of various implements, utensils,
      etc.—and now constitute separate industries. On the other
      hand, there is a monopoly which is peculiar to agriculture and
      unknown to industry, and which cannot be eliminated under
      capitalism—the monopoly of land ownership. Even when there
      is no private property in land—in the United States none
      actually exists on very large areas to this very
      day—monopoly is created by the ownership of land and its
      occupation by individual private operators. In the country’s
      most important regions all the land is occupied, and an increase
      in the number of agricultural enterprises is possible only when
      existing enterprises are broken up; the free formation of new
      enterprises alongside the old is impossible. The monopoly of
      land ownership is a drag on the development of agriculture, and
      this monopoly retards the development of capitalism in
      agriculture, which, therefore, is unlike industry in this
      respect.

We are unable to make an accurate comparison of the amounts of
      capital invested in industrial and in agricultural enterprises
      because ground-rent forms a part of the value of the
      land. Accordingly, we have to compare the capital invested in
      industry and the value of industrial products with the total
      value of all farm property and the value of the major farm
      product. Only the percentages showing increases in the total
      values on both sides are strictly comparable.

 |  | $000,000 | Increase(%)
 |  | 1900 | 1910
Industry | Capital of all enterprisesValue of products | 8,97511,406 | 18,42820,671 | 105.381.2
Agriculture | Value of all farm propertyValue of all cereal crops
  Production of cereals inbushels (000,000) | 20,4401,4834,439 | 40,9912,6654,513 | 100.579.81.7

We find that during the 10 years from 1900 to 1910 the value of
      capital invested in industry and the value of all farm property
      have doubled. The great and fundamental difference between the
      two is that in agriculture the major product, cereals, increased
      by an insignificant 1.7%—while the total population
      increased 21%.

Agriculture lags behind industry in development; this is a
      feature of all capitalist countries constituting one of the most
      profound causes of disproportion between the various branches of
      the economy, of crises and soaring prices.

Capital liberated agriculture from feudalism and drew it into
      commodity circulation and thereby into world economic development, lifting it from medieval backwardness and
      patriarchal stagnation. But capital, instead of eliminating the
      oppression, exploitation and poverty of the masses, produces
      these calamities in a new guise and restores their old forms on
      a “modern” basis. The contradiction between industry and
      agriculture, far from being eliminated by capitalism, is, on the
      contrary, further extended and sharpened by it. The oppression
      of capital, seen primarily in the sphere of trade and industry,
      weighs more and more heavily on agriculture.

The insignificant increase in the quantity of agricultural
      produce (+1.7%) and the enormous increase in its value (+79.8%)
      shows clearly, on the one hand, the role of ground-rent, the
      tribute extorted from society by the landowners. Because of
      their monopolist position, they are able to take advantage of
      the backwardness of agriculture, which does not keep pace with
      industry, and to fill their pockets with millions and millions
      of dollars. In the 10 years, the value of all farm property
      increased by $20,500 million, of which only $5,000 million
      constituted the increase in the value of buildings, livestock
      and equipment. The value of land—capitalized
      ground-rent—increased in the 10 years by
      $ 15 , 000 million (+118.1%).

On the other hand, the difference in the class status
      of the small farmers and the hired labourers is here thrown into
      especially sharp relief. To be sure, both labour; to be sure,
      both are subject to exploitation by capital, though in entirely
      different forms. But only vulgar bourgeois democrats will for
      this reason put the two different classes together and speak of
      small-scale operations by family farms. To do so is to cover up
      and disguise the social system of the economy—its
      bourgeois nature—and push into the foreground a feature
      common to all earlier formations, namely, the necessity
      for the petty farmer to work, to engage in personal, physical
      labour, if he is to survive.

Under capitalism, the small farmer—whether he wants to or
      not, whether he is aware of it or not—becomes a commodity
      producer. And it is this change that is fundamental, for it
      alone, even when he does not as yet exploit hired labour, makes
      him a petty bourgeois and converts him into an antagonist of the
      proletariat. He sells his product, while the proletarian sells
      his labour-power. The small farmers, as a class, cannot but seek
      a rise in the prices of agricultural products, and this is
      tantamount to their joining the big landowners in sharing the
      ground-rent, and siding with the landowners against the rest of
      society. As commodity production develops, the small farmer, in
      accordance with his class status, inevitably becomes a petty landed proprietor .

There are cases even among wage-workers when a small part of
      them side with their masters against the whole class of
      wage-earners. But this is merely a small fraction of a
      class uniting with its antagonists, against the entire class. It is impossible to imagine any improvement of the
      condition of wage-earners as a class, without an improvement in
      the living standard of the masses, or without a sharpening of
      the antagonism between them and capital, which rules
      contemporary society, the antagonism between them and the entire
      class of capitalists. But it is quite possible, on the contrary,
      to imagine a state of affairs—indeed, such a situation is
      even typical of capitalism—where an improvement in the
      condition of the small farmers, as a class, results from their
      alliance with the big landlords, their participation in exacting
      a higher ground-rent from society as a whole, the contradictions
      arising between them and the mass of proletarians and
      semi-proletarians, who depend, entirely or at least mostly, on
      the sale of their labour-power.

Here is a comparison of American statistics on the number and
      position of wage-earners and of small farmers:

 |  | 1900 | 1910 | Increase(%)
Industry | Number of wage-earners (000)Their wages ($000,000) | 4,7132,008 | 6,6153,427 | 40.470.6
Agriculture | Number of wage-earners (000)Their wages ($000,000) | ?357 | ?652 | c. 47.182.3

Number of farmers (000)Value of their major product, cereal crops ($000,000) | 5,7371,483 | 6,3612,665 | 10.979.8

The workers in industry lost, for their wages went up by only
      70.6% (“only”, because almost the same quantity of cereals,
      101.7% of the old quantity, is now 179.8% of the old price!),
      while the number of workers in creased all of 40%.

The small farmers gained , in their capacity of petty
      landowners, at the expense of the proletariat. The number of
      small farmers increased by only 10.9% (even if the small
      commercial farms are singled out, the increase is still only
      11.9%), and while the quantity of their product hardly increased
      at all (+1.7%), its value went up 79.8%.

Naturally, commercial and finance capital took the lion’s share
      of this ground-rent, but the class status of the small farmer
      and the wage-earner, vis-à-vis each other, is entirely
      akin to the status of petty bourgeois and proletarian.

The numerical growth of wage-earners outstrips the
      growth of population (+40% for the former as against +21% for
      the latter). There is growing expropriation of the petty
      producers and small farmers. There is growing proletarization of
      the population. [1]

The increase in the number of farmers—and to an even
      greater extent, as we already know, in the number of proprietors
      among them— lags behind the growth of the
      population (10.9%, as against 21%). The small farmers are
      increasingly converted into monopolists, into petty landed
      proprietors.

Let us now take a look at the relationship between small-scale
      and large-scale production in industry and in agriculture. In
      respect of industry the figures are not for 1900 and 1910, but
      for 1904 and 1910.

Industrial enterprises are divided into three main groups
      depending on the value of their products, the small being those
      with an output of less than $20,000; the medium, from $20,000 to
      $100,000, and the large $100,000 and over. We have no way of
      grouping agricultural enterprises except by
      acreage. Accordingly, small farms are those up to 100 acres;
      medium, from 100 to 175; and large, 175 and over.

 | Groups | Number of enterprises (000) | Increase(%)
 | 1900 | % | 1910 | %
Industry | SmallMediumLarge | 1444824 | 66.622.211.2 | 1805731 | 67.221.311.5 | 25.018.729.1

Total | 216 | 100.0 | 268 | 100.0 | 24.2
Agriculture | SmallMediumLarge | 3,2971,4221,018 | 57.524.817.7 | 3,6911,5161,154 | 58.023.818.2 | 11.96.613.3

Total | 5,737 | 100.0 | 6,361 | 100.0 | 10.9

The uniformity of evolution proves to be remarkable.

Both in industry and agriculture the proportion of medium
      establishments is reduced, for their number grows more slowly
      than that of the small and large enterprises.

Both in industry and agriculture the small enterprises increase
      in number at a slower rate than the large.

What are the changes in the economic strength or economic role
      of the various types of enterprises? For the industrial
      enterprises we have the returns on the value of their products,
      and for the agricultural, on the total value of all farm
      property.

 | Groups | $000,000 | $000,000 | Increase(%)
 | 1900 | % | 1910 | %
Industry | SmallMediumLarge | 9272,12911,737 | 6.314.479.3 | 1,1272,54417,000 | 5.512.382.2 | 21.519.544.8

Total | 14,793 | 100.0 | 20,671 | 100.0 | 37.9
Agriculture | SmallMediumLarge | 5,7905,7218,929 | 28.428.043.6 | 10,49911,08919,403 | 25.627.147.3 | 81.393.8117.3

Total | 20,440 | 100.0 | 40,991 | 100.0 | 100.5

Once again the uniformity of evolution is remarkable.

Both in industry and agriculture the relative number of, small
      and medium enterprises is decreasing, and only the relative
      number of the large enterprises is increasing.

In other words, the displacement of small-scale by large-scale
      production is under way both in industry and in agriculture.

The difference between industry and agriculture in this case is
      that the proportion of small enterprises in industry increased
      somewhat more than the proportion of medium enterprises (+21.5%,
      as against +19.5%), while the reverse was true for
      agriculture. Of course, this difference is not great, and no
      general conclusions can be drawn from it. But the fact remains
      that in the world’s leading capitalist country small-scale
      production in industry gained more ground in the last decade
      than medium-scale production, whereas the reverse was true for
      agriculture. This fact shows how little importance is to be
      attached to the current assertions of bourgeois economists that
      the law of the displacement of small-scale by large-scale
      production is confirmed, unconditionally and without any
      exception, by industry, and refuted by agriculture.

In the agriculture of the U.S.A. the displacement of small-scale
      by large-scale production is not merely under way, but is
      proceeding with greater uniformity than in industry.

In considering this, the fact demonstrated above should not be
      forgotten, namely, that the grouping of farms by acreage understates the process of displacement of small-scale
      by large-scale production.

As for the degree of concentration already achieved,
      agriculture is very far behind. In industry, more than
      eight-tenths of all production is in the hands of the large
      enterprises that constitute only 11% of the total number. The
      role of the small enterprises is insignificant: two-thirds of
      the total number of enterprises account for only 5.5% of the
      total production! By comparison, agriculture is still in a state
      of dispersion: small enterprises, comprising 58% of the total
      number, account for one-quarter of the total value of all farm
      property; while 18% large enterprises account for less than
      one-half (47%). The total number of agricultural enterprises is
      over 20 times greater than the number in industry.

This confirms the old conclusion—if the evolution of
      agriculture is compared with that of industry, capitalism in
      agriculture is at a stage more akin to the manufactory stage
      than to the stage of large-scale machine industry. Manual labour
      still prevails in agriculture, and the use of machinery is
      relatively very limited. But the data given above do not in any
      way prove the impossibility of socializing agricultural
      production, even at the present stage of its development. Those
      who control the banks directly control one-third of
      America’s farms, and indirectly dominate the lot. In view of the
      modern development of associations of every kind and of
      communications and transport, it is undoubtedly possible to
      organize production under a single general plan on a million
      farms raising more than one-half the total value of the
      product.


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Notes
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[1] The number of wage-earners in agriculture, or rather the growth in
their number, is obtained from the following ratio: 82.3:70.6
      =x : 40.4, hence x=47.1.
— Lenin

 | 14. The Expropriation of the Small Farmers | | | 16. Summary and Conclusions |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


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New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture
------------------------------------------------------------


PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


16. Summary and Conclusions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The agricultural censuses taken in the United States in 1900 and
      1910 are the last word in social statistics in this sphere of
      the economy. It is the best material of any available in the
      advanced countries, covering millions of farms and allowing
      precise well-founded conclusions on the evolution of agriculture
      under capitalism. One other particular reason why this material
      can be used to study the laws of the evolution is that the
      U.S.A. has the largest size, the greatest diversity of
      relationships, and the greatest range of nuances and forms of
      capitalist agriculture.

We find here, on the one hand, a transition from the
      slave-holding—or what is in this case the same, from the
      feudal—structure of agriculture to commercial and
      capitalist agriculture; and, on the other hand, capitalism
      developing with unusual breadth and speed in the freest and most
      advanced bourgeois country. We observe alongside of this
      remarkably extensive colonization conducted on democratic
      capitalist lines.

We find here areas which have long been settled, highly
      industrialized, highly intensive, and similar to most of the
      areas of civilized, old-capitalist Western Europe; as well as
      areas of primitive, extensive cropping and stock-raising, like
      some of the outlying areas of Russia or parts of Siberia. We
      find large and small farms of the most diverse types: great
      latifundia, plantations of the former slave-holding South, and
      the homestead West, and the highly capitalist North of the
      Atlantic seaboard; the small farms of the Negro share-croppers,
      and the small capitalist farms producing milk and vegetables for
      the market in the industrial North or fruits on the Pacific
      coast; “wheat factories” employing hired labour and the homesteads of “independent” small farmers, still full
      of naïve illusions about living by the “labour of their own
      hands”.

This is a remarkable diversity of relationships, embracing both
      past and future, Europe and Russia. The comparison with Russia
      is especially instructive, by the way, in regard to the question
      of the consequences of a possible transfer of all land to the
      peasants without compensation, a measure that is progressive but
      undoubtedly capitalist.

The U.S.A. offers the most convenient example for the study of
      the general laws of capitalist development in agriculture and
      the variety of forms these laws assume. A study of this kind
      leads up to conclusions which may be summed up in the following
      brief propositions.

In agriculture, as compared with industry, manual labour
      predominates over machinery to an immeasurably greater
      extent. But the machine is steadily advancing, improving farming
      techniques, extending the scale of operations and making them
      more capitalist. In modern agriculture, machinery is used in the
      capitalist way.

Hired labour is the chief sign and indicator of capitalism in
      agriculture. The development of hired labour, like the growing
      use of machinery, is evident in all parts of the
      country, and in every branch of agriculture. The growth in the
      number of hired labourers outstrips the growth of the country’s
      rural and total population. The growth in the number of farmers
      lags behind that of the rural population. Class contradictions
      are intensified and sharpened.

The displacement of small-scale by large-scale production in
      agriculture is going forward. This is fully proved by a
      comparison of the returns for 1900 and 1910 on total farm
      property.

However, this displacement is understated, and the condition of
      the small farmers is shown in bright colors because
      statisticians in America in 1910 confined themselves—as in
      fact they did almost everywhere in Europe—to grouping the
      farms by acreage. The wider and faster the intensification of
      agriculture, the higher is the degree of this understatement and
      the brighter the colors.

Capitalism grows not only by accelerating the development of
      large-acreage farms in extensive areas, but also by creating in
      the intensive areas enterprises on smaller tracts whose
      operations are on a much larger scale and are much more
      capitalist.

As a result, the concentration of production in the large
      enterprises is actually much greater—and the displacement
      of small-scale production actually goes farther and
      deeper—than is indicated by ordinary data about farms
      grouped by acreage. The returns of the 1900 Census, compiled
      with greater care and in greater detail, are more scientific and
      leave no doubt at all on this score.

The expropriation of small-scale agriculture is advancing. In
      the last few decades, the proportion of owners to the total
      number of farmers declined steadily, while the growth in the
      number of farmers lagged behind population increase. The number
      of full owners is declining absolutely in the North, the most
      important section, which yields the largest volume of farm
      products and has neither any vestiges of slavery nor any
      extensive homesteading. In the last decade, the proportion of
      farmers reporting livestock in general decreased; in contrast to
      the increased proportion of owners reporting dairy cattle there
      was an even greater increase in the proportion of operators
      without horses, especially among the small farmers.

On the whole, a comparison of corresponding data on industry and
      agriculture for the same period shows that although the latter
      is incomparably more backward, there is a remarkable similarity
      in the laws of evolution, and that small-scale production is
      being ousted-from both.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | 15. A Comparative Picture of Evolution in Industry and Agriculture | | |  |

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